


The Long Wake

by theartofvidding



Category: Homeland
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sick Character, Suspense, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:17:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theartofvidding/pseuds/theartofvidding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Peter Quinn woke, was the day the world almost ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_ _

_De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine;_  
_Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Fiant aures tuæ intendentes_  
_in vocem deprecationis meæ.  
_ _Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?_

Psalm 130 

* * *

 

Carrie Mathison was back into the loving arms of the CIA exactly two months and one day after the failed Berlin Hauptbanhof attempt of December 2015.  
The world had become a very different place by then. Not certainly because of that one act of terror, which had not been the first nor it would have been the last; not because the Central Intelligence Agency was now deep into European affairs with the cancellation of any laws promulgated by the EU to protect their own citizens against being spied on. Not because Israel and Iran had eventually opened fire against each other, putting CIA-controlled Javadi in the worst position against his makers, and Saul Berenson in explicit disagreement with his friends in Jerusalem, a long-time ally to the CIA.  
It was a different world because nuclear warfare was now a not-so-remote possibility anymore. It was a world resembling that of fifty years earlier, a world where red buttons could be pressed at any moment by powerful men in need for a vulgar display of power. It was a world where the archaeological treasures of Syria and its beautiful, chocolate-eyed children did not exist anymore. A dry flatland lay comatose in the center of war-torn Middle East, with sickly humans populating small areas near the extreme edges.  
Peter Quinn had been in a minimally conscious state during most of these events, his brain stuck, incapable of processing complex stimuli, silent and paralyzed, not even capable of being truly, deeply, meaningfully scared of his own state, or the world's. His new reality was the simple beauty of a sound passing the barrier of his hearing system to vibrate in resonance with the firing of the weary neurons in his temporal lobes, or a blade of light penetrating the heavy curtains of his hospital room, almost always empty, awakening his visual system for a brief moment in time.

The day Peter Quinn woke, was the day the world almost ended. 

* * *

**7 months earlier.**

"Saul. Hi." Carrie whispered.

She tiredly rose from her armchair, finding it hard to stretch her muscles after a whole night curled up like a cat, knees propped up against her chest.  
"Carrie." His voice sounded relieved, as if he could perceive her state just from the pitch of her voice. "'You okay?"  
"Yeah." She threw the woolen blanket aside, realizing it was already ten in the morning. "Yeah, I'm fine." She finally stood. A quick glance outside the large window pane gifted her with the peaceful view of a snowy river bank, with happy, noisy children ice-skating.

"How are things there?" He asked.

She bit her lower lip. She did not need to check up on _him_. "Same as always."  
"Too bad."  
"Yeah. Too bad." She sneaked out of the room, trying to do it as silently as she could. He was having REM activity and she could read that in his electroencephalography sheet. She could see and she knew many things about him by now, that she would not have guessed just a year earlier. He was sleeping. Patients like him, they have wake-sleep cycles like anybody else, though nobody could tell a difference.  But she could. She could now.  
She leaned back against the cold wall dividing his room from the world outside.

"So what is it?" She asked, trying to sound casual.  
A short moment of silence followed.

"We need you, Carrie. I need you." Saul paused. "Would you please reconsider my offer?"

"Shit, Saul." She whispered, covering her mouth as she talked. "We've already had this conversation."  
The hallway was empty and silent. She could hear the monitors bleep and chirp in the background. A small, half-covered window allowed a narrow view of the bedroom interiors.

"Saul, 'you still there?"  
"I'm here waiting."

Carrie took a long, deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

 _Fuck._  
"Okay then."

"Thanks."

"..."

She hung up.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Astrid." Carrie's voice trembled for a moment. "This is... wrong. I know that."

Astrid placed the cups into the sink, leaning against it with both hands without looking back at Carrie. She was not angry, even though she had been expecting that conversation for a long time.

"I knew you'd go back. It's okay."

"No." Carrie stood up angrily. "It's not _fucking_ okay, Astrid. I... I need to do this." She lowered her voice. "But I don't want to."

"He would do the same."

"Oh, I bet."

"Then do it. You're no use to Saul while you're here, and you're not being a mother either." Astrid walked up to Carrie. "Go be useful." She smiled. "I'll take care of him."

"This is the fucking point." Carrie exhaled. "I feel guilty of leaving him here. I know he's in good hands. It's just _me_." She sat back down. "I want to be with him."

"I know you do. But you also want to be with your daughter, and," Astrid turned on the TV set. "Look at that."

Operation Shock and Awe from 2003 was nothing compared to that. Israel and Iran, beating the hell out of each other in form of airstrikes.

"It's not like the CIA will stop this, Astrid." Carrie snarled. "It's Israel and Iran."

"Your friend, Israel. Yes?"

"What are you suggesting? That we go up in arms to bomb the guys who we ourselves control?" Carrie shook her head. "Javadi will regain control of the establishment. He just needs a little time. And _cash_. Saul must be working his ass off for that."

"So Javadi's indeed your man." Astrid turned back to her, a half-smile curving her lips. "We all knew."

"No point in keeping secrets from you at this point. Just keep your mouth shut about it." Carrie stood up, arms crossed, her lip trembling slightly. "I don't wanna leave _him_ , Astrid." She looked away. "I might just never see him again." She whispered, more to herself than to her friend.

Astrid came closer. "Carrie." She looked at her straight. She could see her own grief reflected in her friend's irises. "He doesn't know. He _can't_ know."

* * *

 

That very night, Carrie walked into the Berlin Medical & Neurological Rehabilitation Clinic one last time. She was used to come and go as she pleased, free to move as everybody there knew she would go and sit with one patient, every day or night, for as long as she could resist sitting half-crooked into a rigid armchair in a silent room with no chatter, no flowers, no other visitors.

" _Quinn_." She whispered. "Hey."

He lay flat on his back, his hands placed tidily on his lap, a white hospital gown and clean, fresh cotton sheets forming a graceful dip between his knees. He smelled of cologne and soap, his cheeks so pale she could see the slightly yellowish traces that the oxygen mask had left on the skin, night after night, _just for safety_ the doctors said. In case he had a respiratory crisis while asleep. Carrie realized how she hated that mask, leaving unwanted marks on a perfectly pretty face. _Keeping him alive_.

She chased that thought away, half-ashamed at its futility, half-angry.

"It's me. I'm here." She sat beside him on the tall hospital bed. He had become so thin she could share half of it with him. "I'm here, Quinn." She took his left hand between hers and lay like that for a few minutes, silently. His eyes, wide open, were fixed frozen onto the ceiling.

The bells in a faraway church rang midnight.

"You know I'd never _abandon_ you, right?" Carrie choked back a bout of tears. "I'd never forget you. Never." She caressed his forehead. Someone had cut his hair shorter. She remembered asking the Wednesday day-shift nurse to see to that.

"You're looking good, Quinn. You're the tidiest you've been in a long time." She smiled at him. "I'd go out with you, you know? I'm sure we'd have fun. You'd be surprised the things I'd say yes to."

She could hear the sound of his snarky response in her mind. But he just lay there, his gaze now erratic from a momentary nystagmus, wandering the lands of emptiness in his brain.

"Quinn." She whispered, hoping to see his expression change to anything meaningful. "Quinn, you're not sleeping now. You're here. Focus. Come on."  
She leaned forward, their faces so close she could feel his breath on her lips, getting faster as she approached. The nystagmus slowed and stopped.  
" _Quinn_."  
One single tear escaped him, accompanied by a low-pitched, short murmur. Carrie fought her own urge of embracing him, pulling away the tubes feeding him into his stomach, the IV hydrating his body and the steel curtain separating him from the world outside. The faint sound of his voice adding to his breaths reassured her he was listening. He was there. He was just responding the only way he knew how to.

"Quinn, listen to me." She spoke slowly, articulating each word softly and clearly for him. "I'll come back for you. I promise."

Carrie realized how badly she wanted to believe those words. The same words she had said to Franny almost three months earlier, the same words she herself never fully trusted, nonetheless wanting them desperately to mean something, to be true.

"Quinn." She sat up. Concentrating on his hand held tight in hers, she closed her eyes. "Please, _wake up now_. Please." She could feel the warmth underneath his skin, the perfection in his regular sequence of inhalations and exhalations, no machine controlling his breath tonight, all as if he had just been asleep for the longest time.

His breath got quieter as he closed his eyes again, seamlessly shifting back to the appearance of sleep.

"It's okay." Carrie whispered. "I'm sorry, I know it's hard. I know you're here." She placed her left hand onto his chest, and felt his heartbeat underneath. "It's gonna be alright. Don't be afraid. I'll be back."

She stood up slowly, never losing sight of him, pulling up to the door.

" _Thank you_. Thank you for saving my life." she hardly controlled her pitch. The doctors said he could probably hear her, even though they were not sure whether he could understand or process meanings in any way. He was minimally conscious, a choice of words that was cruel just in its definition: more than brain-dead, but not enough for anyone to function properly. He was just there, his brain stuck in an endless, meaningless low-maintenance loop.

"Goodbye, Quinn."

Carrie walked out without looking back.

* * *

**One week later.**

Carrie Mathison was met by her new team, in her shiny new office in Istanbul, one day in March, 2016. She was strangely excited, and guilty of being so. She was slightly afraid of her own excitement, but overall she was heartbroken and that was the feeling that hurt the most at that point. For a number of reasons, she once again had to endure loneliness: her daughter back home living with her sister, left there for her own safety but this time much to Carrie's own distress. Saul Berenson in Langley, controlling and manipulating information and people to direct a circuitry he was starting to not understand anymore. Otto Düring in Berlin, waiting for her impossible change of mind about becoming his partner at the Foundation. And Quinn.  
Quinn, who had saved her so many times she had lost count. Whom she believed she had saved, just to see his condition worsen and worsen to a point of no return. Quinn, whose attempted murder had been televised as a demonstration of terrorism through chemical warfare in front of millions of people's eyes. An offensive, undignified way to die like that, spasming and drooling against a glass window, like a laboratory rat for the evilest of humans: the terrorist, the one who is merciless of anything alive, who wants every second of your life to be scary and uncertain.

\---

Blood was dripping down the man's cheekbone, where a deep knife cut had ripped the skin open. She was holding the knife in her own hands, parallel to his jugular artery, one inch from the beating, blue-ish surface of it. Her grip was firm, thanks to the dry wall into which her elbow was pointing and sustaining the weight of the man's body. It was a dark, wet hangar, similar to that where Otto kept his private jet. Black Ops men were loading a helicopter far away on a runway with heavy trunks, while she was holding the knife to the man's throat in a corner of the hangar, close to a pile of old, rusty drums of fertilizers with yellow biohazard labels on them. The man was muttering words she could not hear. In the distance, she could see the Black Ops team waiting for her near the helicopter, with no more trunks to load. They all looked like the same person, but she could not distinguish their faces, she only knew that _inside._ The man started sobbing.  
"Shut the fuck up." She hissed to him.  
"Please, don't..." He cried, frantically.

"I said _shut the fuck up._ " She got scared by her own dry, harsh tone. "You don't get to fucking _beg._ You don't get anything."

Her phone rang. A text.

'Carrie, it's your mother. He's waiting. Don't be scared."

"Please, don't... please...." The man started coughing, anguish in his voice.

Carrie turned back to the runway. Only one Black Ops man was left waiting. He pulled something from a pocket and her phone rang again, this time a call.

"Carrie, it's me."

She froze, her gaze fixed into that of the dying man, her ears glued to the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Carrie."

"Quinn."

"I was thinking about you."

"What _the fuck_ is this?" She sighed.

"It's me, Carrie. It's always been me."

She clenched her fist, just to grip the emptiness where the phone had been. The phone was gone. The runway had disappeared, and the far away figure too.

"Are you going to kill me?" The man's whisper had her turn back. He lay in front of her, in chains and an orange prison suit. Nothing was making sense.

"Who are you?" She heard herself ask.

But the man was now speaking Arabic. He was chanting in a soothing voice, some words she could make out, some she could not. One second later she was facing Hussein, the Syrian doctor from Berlin.

"I saved him." He whispered.  
"I know."

"You should not take _one single life_. Only god is permitted to give it and to take it. I saved him."

"This man..." She whispered, pointing at the corner where the prisoner was lying seconds earlier.

"...Was a terrorist. But his blood's going to be on _your_ hands."

"What they did to Quinn... that was worse than killing him."

"He survived because one man had mercy."

And then there was light. A white circular room, empty except from the bed at its center. _He_ lay there, covered in white sheets. She started walking towards him, slowly. She knew well now how that scene was going to unfold. She reached his bedside.

"Quinn." She whispered. "I'm back."

He opened his eyes and _looked at her_.

The alarm clock fell off her bedside table, startling Carrie wide awake in her bedroom in Istanbul. It was a nice apartment in the diplomatic quarters, safer than anywhere else in that city full of stray cats. It was time to call home. Carrie turned her computer on and opened up Skype, where Maggie was already online, waiting for her.  
Of all things, and against all reasonability, Carrie realized she wanted vengeance. She dreamed at night of chasing each member of the cell and inflicting them any possible sufferings that could equal or surpass Quinn's, and every night she could not finish her dream of death. Every night, the scene would change to Quinn's awakening in a room showered in golden sunlight.

The call was short. Franny was sleepy and her sister knew those days Carrie did not have much to say. They both felt like the times of Islamabad were ages-old, when ten minutes talking on the phone were too much for both. Now it was just painful because they both realized they wanted to share their impossibly distant lives with each other, but somehow the unbalance between them was making it harder, and the home sickness Carrie felt was keeping her from giving in too much to her feelings when she saw her daughter, to whom she had thought she could go back when she had left Berlin, once more left in the care of others. This time, it hurt. But Istanbul was dangerous. Not the city in itself as much as the potentialities of a nearby war that was unfolding before their eyes. They all feared the terrorists in Istanbul, and the Government: but neither ISIS nor Recep Erdogan's authoritarian policies scared Carrie as much as an Iranian nuclear warhead dropping on their very heads at the extremely eastern border of Europe. And this was why Franny needed to be as far away from there as she could manage to keep her, even though that meant hurting both of them. Many times she had made choices upon the secret need to escape from herself or others, but Turkey was different. She had spent one week in Langley contemplating to leave again, and the confusion there had made the choice for her. She needed to be somewhere she could _act_. She wanted that. There had been no hunch, no attempt at leaving the unexpected or unwanted parts of her life behind, no escape from any feelings. She felt the burden of her choice, but she was proud of having made it nonetheless. For once, she did not feel worthless. She loved her daughter, but she was also needed for a job only a few others could do, and that meant keeping Franny safe meanwhile.

_And it hurt like a motherfucker._

A couple hours later, Carrie was dressed and ready to leave. Two tall men waited for her at the front door. The black car with the diplomatic plate pulled up slowly and exited the iron gated building complex, living the tidy, sunlit front gardens behind.

 


	2. Gog and Magog

"And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison   
and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle."

Revelation, 20:7

* * *

 

Deep down in her rootless soul, Carrie felt like she would never truly belong anywhere on Earth. It was some sort of a condition she reckoned to be born with, a companion to her _other_ condition: she felt like carrying a dark passenger deep inside came with the necessity to feel homeless, to never be held captive by the smell of a garden, the warmth of a living room, the taste of some food, or the love of other humans. This view had started to crumble down on its own foundations, which she thought stronger, as she had unwillingly found herself opening up to the world, pulled to it with a force she could not counterbalance, and now she felt more vulnerable owing to the knowledge of the losses she had endured, and the ones she might endure. Despite that, she felt more real, more human. She felt _alive_. She realized how many events must have conjured up to change her, and from time to time she wondered whether that was just part of the process of getting older, leaving her certainties behind to embrace doubt, and vulnerability, and loss. When those dark, sharp thoughts punctured her, Carrie was finally able to feel the breadth of life inside her, and there were days when she was able to focus that strength on making sure she could still _love_.

That was Carrie's own medicine, to be taken alongside her daily dose of lithium, to keep herself awake to all that _existing_ meant. Those days when she tried to depict in her mind her daughter's soft ginger locks, her smile so similar to that of her brave, tormented father, those days she desperately longed to remember how Quinn's voice sounded like, how he was like in real clothes, standing, young and healthy as he used to be... those were the days when she knew she was responsible for other people's happiness. Those days, she knew she had let parts of herself out in the world, not just by giving birth, but by giving love as well: those thin threads kept her connected to reality, and she could feel the chemicals inside her, truly, beautifully continuing their cycles and transformations. She felt grateful to a divinity from whom she was yet demanding some explanations; she realized her desperate hope for all that to have some sort of meaning, for the sufferings of everyone to be part of a plan, for her own load to be, one day, released from her shoulders by a benevolent entity who would wash away the uncertainty of the border between good and bad, between righteous and sinful, between loving Quinn and escaping him _to save him_ from herself and now having lost him possibly forever, between loving her daughter and having to keep her away. Between taking people for granted and losing them.

Carrie's loneliness enabled such thoughts those spring days in Istanbul, while she strolled through the historic center full of colors from the Tulip Festival, thinking about Turkey and the Middle East, recounting mentally the names and addresses of her contacts there, mostly sharing intel on Erdogan's policies against the opposition, the government's information restriction measures to stop hacker groups and, generally, the modernist youth of Turkey from having ideas circulate on the internet.

The strong hold clenching her right wrist caught her by surprise at her own doorstep, having her lose her balance as she was turning the key into the lock. In the dim sunset light, Carrie was pulled away from her front door and towards the back of the building complex, right in a shady patio facing the back garden where people used to gather in summertime to refresh and get some air, lying mostly empty in early March, if not for a couple of plastic outdoor chairs. She was only able to catch her breath as she was pushed in a corner of the patio and someone placed their hands firmly on her shoulders.

"Who the fuck are you." She hissed.

"A friend."

"Is that so..."

A young man in his thirties, dark-haired, tall, with a stubble, quite handsome she had to admit, in his slightly unkempt appearance. A worn-out jersey jacket too large for him, a khaki sport suit in matching shirt and pants, Nike sneakers covered in stains and mud from what must have been the terrain of a periphery, all pointed to a member of that unemployed though educated Turkish youth in search for a future. Something familiar in his voice hurled Carrie all the way back to Berlin.

"Numan?!"

He took his baseball cap off.

"Hi Carrie."

"You shaved your hair. Good for you." She joked, finally relaxing. They sat down on the plastic chairs. Numan looked different indeed: thinner, his head clean-shaven, only a slight scruff on his cheeks.

"Laura got me a new ID." He declared. "At least, I think that was her. Never saw her again after that day in Berlin. It just came in an envelope at the club. The girls gave it to me, said it was left at the counter. They had no idea what it contained. I use it, you know." He hesitated. "My mom got sick. I had to come. I'm safe, until they recognize me at some police check." His voice got softer, uncertain. "I'm still scared being here. I keep a low profile."

Carrie pierced him right through with an inquisitive stare.

"What are you doing at my house, Numan?" She asked. "How did you know I was in Istanbul?"

"I have ways. How's your friend? The one from the video?"

"He's," Carrie bit her lower lip, caught by surprise by the thought of Quinn in those circumstances. She used to think about him a lot, but now she had trained herself to contain those moments within the nightly borders of solitude and tranquility, when no one was there to see her sadness and longing. "He's... not okay." She whispered, more to herself than to Numan.

"I'm sorry." He placed his hand on hers. "Carrie. I risked my life to look for you. Because I know you. And I trust you."

"You shouldn't have, Numan. I don't work for the Foundation anymore."

"This has nothing to do with the Foundation." He got a large smartphone from his left pocket, entered a knock code in a quick movement of his thumbs and put it in Carrie's lap. "I think we're all in danger." He articulated, slowly, painfully.

Carrie looked down at the phone lying in her lap. A photograph of a middle aged, chunky man in a kippah at the counter of a luxury hotel, then at the bar with a skinny, tall younger man with prominent cheekbones and eyes circled in purple. They seemed to be wading deep into some sort of discussion that kept their heads close and low, but from those photographs Carrie could not make out much more.

"Who are these people?" She asked.

Numan tightened his lips. "I don't know." He got the phone back and extracted the memory card. "But there's more." He threw it down a small manhole allowing excess water from the garden to flow away underground during rainy days.

* * *

"Keep your head down." Numan instructed as they were descending a few steps below ground in a dusty street at the northern periphery of the city, a yellowish conglomerate of tall, scrawny buildings housing hundreds of families who could not afford the fancy city center, boiling in heat during the summer, dry and freezing in wintertime. Colored graffiti were the only sign of human intellect and creativity inhabiting the premises.

Carrie was only worried to not be reporting back to her body guards by the time they would look for her in the evening of that lonely Sunday. An entire night contemplating Numan's words and the possibility of a small detour from her usual boring weekend had made her mind up to meet him there, in a day she usually spent alone in the house, if not for the short trip to the local catholic church, that she was allowed to take on her own. Nobody would have been looking for her for a few more hours. Lowering her head as instructed, Carrie passed the entrance to a large room at the first underground level of one of the many identical buildings making up the complex. It was wet and slightly cold even though a small electric heater was turned on in a corner. Four identical desktop computers were flashing green-on-black screens filled with streaming lines of data. Numan invited her to sit. She did not need to ask what that place was, nor if Numan and the younger girl in a flowered hijab sitting at one of the desks were aware of the immense danger their mere physical presence in that place was posing to their lives.

"Carrie, this is Dilek." Numan placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, causing her to turn back.

"Hi." She greeted her, timidly. "I'm Dilek."

Carrie smiled awkwardly. She knew she was not supposed to be there, and that was a fact. If the Embassy knew she had visited a group of Turkish rebels, that could have compromised their relations with the Government of Istanbul.

_One thing is meeting contacts in a park, another thing is spending the afternoon with a hacker cell. Well, who the fuck am I to say no to this._

Carrie stood and walked up to Dilek. They exchanged a handshake. "Hi Dilek. I'm Carrie, a friend of Numan's."

Dilek raised her brows. "So I'm not the only one who likes this one. Good to know."

That seemed to lighten the heavy atmosphere in the shady basement. Dilek tapped quickly on her keyboard and called for a folder to open up in the UNIX terminal, then she instructed the computer to list its contents. She turned to Carrie.

"Israel has installed a hotline to talk to Russia last year, before the war. Numan decrypted their communications." She declared. Carrie's head spun aimlessly for a couple seconds.

"What." She whispered.

"This." Numan pointed at the file list sitting on Dilek's screen. "Someone in Israel just used the hotline three weeks ago." He pulled a chair up to the desk and sat down at Dilek's side. "I didn't mean to tap their goddamn phone, but they're relaying their digital data on a server I was trying to penetrate. In Germany." Numan entered an IP address into the terminal. "See? I'm pinging it now. It's still on. They don't know I got in and downloaded stuff."

"Shit, Numan. It's not like I can _unsee_ that." Carrie pulled her hair back, pacing the room. "Did it have anything to do with Iran?" She asked.

"Maybe you can answer that." Dilek declared. She pressed the ENTER key and an audio file started playing.

* * *

Carrie lay motionless in her bed, eyes wide open, staring deep _into_ the ceiling as if to penetrate it, but not truly seeing the modern designer lamp casting a dim light into the large bedroom. The words from the phone call she had listened to, back in Numan and Dilek's basement, still resounded in her ears, although she could not make up what the target was of that which looked like a transaction of some sort being discussed between two unknown men speaking Russian, one with a strong Hebrew accent. A printout of the two photographs taken by some surveillance cameras in Tel Aviv lay on her bedside table. Seemingly, Numan had broken the firewall of a luxury hotel there, serving both as a resting place for businesspeople and as the headquarters of some intelligence operation involving a secure line for communications between Israel and their friend and economic ally, the Russian Federation. The phone call involved money and some kind of material being exchanged, and the two seemed to be quite friendly with each other, more like accustomed businessmen discussing yet another deal that would end up benefiting both, than intelligence officers threading the destinies of two nations. The face-to-face encounter had happened just a few days after the call was recorded.

Carrie rose from bed without having slept one single minute of that night. A hunch was telling her things she might not want to know.

* * *

"Saul."

"Carrie, what is it?"  He sat up, realizing he had fallen asleep on the couch and it was now late in the evening. The house was empty and freezing, he had not dined nor was he going to, at this point. Saul Berenson, the man of many trades, was busy, almost always preoccupied and mostly sad about the state of the world and of a few selected people he truly and deeply cared about. He was back in Washington to direct the operations revolving around that absurd war between Israel and Iran which had broken out in the aftermath of the Berlin attempt, with no apparent reason, other than Israel feeling the need to punish Iran for funding and sustaining Hezbollah and possibly some of the multi-faceted organizations fighting the civil war in Syria. Saul was exhausted and looked back in nostalgia to those days in Greece with Mira, after Javadi had been put in power in Iran by that gigantic ensemble operation costing the life of Nicholas Brody, leaving Carrie pregnant and alone, and the CIA safe.

"Did I wake you up?" Carrie asked politely. She was being nice to him and he did not know why she still wanted to like him after all that had happened in Berlin, but he was okay with that. He needed that.

"Yes, you did wake me up."

"I think I need to pursue something."

"Oh, no." Saul rubbed his brow in resignation. "I knew this would happen."

"I saw our hacker friend yesterday. From Berlin."  
He instantly realized who she was talking about.

"In Turkey? What the hell's he doing there?"

"Laura got him in, apparently."

" _Those fucking people_. He's gonna be caught."

"Yeah, I think so. I told him we'd help get him out of Turkey in case he needs that."

Saul froze.  
"You told him what?"

"That we'd help."

"Carrie, why the fuck?"

"I think I owe him. He showed me something, I can't discuss that now. Not like this."

"I'll be in Istanbul by the end of the week, to meet the Ambassador over the Russian plane trespassing Turkey's borders. They want a NATO arbitrate on that. The Agency expects me to report on that."

"We'll talk then, right?"

"Yeah." Saul heaved a sigh he only could feel the weight of. "Yeah, we'll talk then. And Carrie," He hesitated.

"What?"

"Be careful."

He hung up and laid his head back onto the couch. Somehow, he had an idea what that was all about, and the possibilities were endlessly and inexorably catastrophic. Saul fell back into a troubled sleep almost instantly, with no strength to carry himself into bed.


	3. The Dream

I saw a dream and it made me fearful; and these fantasies,   
as I lay on my bed, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

Daniel, 4:5 

* * *

"Quinn, it's me. Blink if you can hear me."

_I can hear you, Carrie. I'm here. I'm blinking, see? I'm here._

"He's still mostly unresponsive." A male voice, professional, detached though caring.

_Who the fuck are you? Get out of here. Leave us alone._

"Quinn."

_Don't touch me, Carrie. You don't want that. You don't want to be here. I'm so fucking done with this shit._

"Peter. Focus. See? You're out of bed today. You're going for a stroll in the park." The doctor, again.

_I am focusing. I am looking at you, asshole. I don't want to go anywhere._

"Quinn. I'm here waiting for you."

_Careful, sweetheart._

"He's not reacting, doc." Another woman, and a smell of clean scrubs and medicine.

_What the hell. I'm speaking out loud. Can't you fucking hear me? My head is spinning._

"Nurse! He's seizing. We need four milligrams of intravenous Lorazepam, slow drip."

_Someone help me. Get me off this fucking chair._

"Hang on Peter, we got you. It's gonna be alright. I know you don't like the wheelchair, we're putting you back in bed, hon." The woman again.

 _Where's Carrie? You sent her away._ _Get off me._

"I'm in with the Lorazepam, doc. I'm gonna need you to transfer him back to bed."

_Please, someone help me._

"You're gonna feel better in no time, darling. We'll go out another day."

_Carrie. Where are you. Why are these people touching me._

"See? You're already better. You're safe. Here we go, back home you are."

_I'm so fucking scared._

"Doctor, he's setting. I'll try the chair again tomorrow, if we manage to have him upright for longer we'll be able to get his blood pressure up without the pills."

"Good. We're gonna scan his brain later, I'll book the session. You keep him monitored, the Lorazepam will wear off by tomorrow morning."

_Oh, not another brain scan. I'm so tired._

"Do I need to call miss Mathison to update her on the seizures?"

"She's abroad."

_I thought she was here. Fucking meds, I'm losing my mind._

"Okay then. Anyone else to call?"

"She's the only designated proxy, we can't give information to anyone else."

"She hasn't visited in months. And he's all alone here."

_Thank god she made one good decision in her life._

"I know. But we can't go against our patient's will. And the Agency's. We'll call miss Mathison if there's a real emergency."

The nurse turned to the pale, emaciated young man lying on the railed bed, staring at the ceiling, seemingly unaware of the commotion and concern around him. She used to think his friend would eventually return, but she had not, and it looked like she was never going to. The extraordinary circumstances of Peter Quinn's battle against death had caused a wave of fame to the Center, and people had been coming and going asking about him, bringing flowers, leaving paper scraps with scribbled prayers, wishes, or even children's drawings. The patient had left precise instructions in the event of being incapacitated, and the nurse knew there was no question whether following them or not: they were all bound by an agreement with the CIA, which involved no talking to the press, no talking to any visitors, and overall complete silence and oblivion of him. So, she had made a point of honor to take good care of this boy, not just because it was her job with any patient, but because she felt the full weight of compassion for this one: she was taken in by his loneliness, his sad stare and muteness, the way he had of showing in his eyes when anything was overwhelming, either the noises around him, or the lights, or her attempts at sitting him up in that large and bulky wheelchair with the reclining seat, the quilt and the cushions, so he could see the sun, enjoy the brisk air of April in Berlin. Sometimes, she wondered how he must have sounded like when joking, or how he must have looked when smiling, before being brutally tortured. Even though he had not spoken one word ever since, she knew this new person he was and wondered about the person he must have been. She could catch hints of that by the loving glances his friend would give him, by the endless hours she would sit at his bedside, sometimes spending the entire night curled up into a ball beside him in bed or after pulling the armchair up to the headboard so she could fall asleep holding his hand. He must have been someone who had given a good deal of love to be receiving such devotion in return.  
And then, all of a sudden, he had been left alone, which made her sadder than any of his physical ailments. She had noticed a change in him. His gaze was duller; his faint interactions, the blink of an eye, the clenching of a fist, the occasional silent tears, were rarer. She had never been able to take him outside again after that first time his friend was there and they had done it together with the doctor, pretending it was such a happy, happy day to carry someone that young and handsome on a stroll that needed two people just to push that gigantic wheelchair, and one to hold the IV pole. But it was a dry, sunny day in a strangely warm winter, and they all wanted him to sit in natural light, to feel the breeze on his cheeks, to hear new noises: maybe, they all thought, just maybe he would feel the urge to say something, to reach for a hand, or just to smile a little instead of just staring, as he always seemed to be doing, at the horror populating his memories - or what was left of them.  

"Well, I think we're done here, Peter, the meds are working. I'll see you for the scan. Nurse?" The doctor gently stroked Quinn's shoulder. "Let's give him some rest, shall we."

"My son's his age." She whispered. "That's so sad. Such a young, handsome boy."

_Yeah, that's such a fucking shame. Now get out y'all, my head hurts._

Quinn closed his eyes and fell asleep from the anticonvulsants. A dreamless night awaited him in Berlin.

* * *

**Istanbul**

April, 2016

Saul stirred his coffee pensively. He liked how they brewed it down there, it was so different from the caffeine-loaded watery beverage he would ingurgitate just to stay awake in America. He also liked how they would drink it, sitting at small, low tables, chatting, as if nothing could ever distract them from the most sacred of rites, that was spending time together. Many men and women were enjoying their afternoon like that in the historic center of the Turkish capital, so Middle-Eastern and so European at the same time, crossed by streaks of modernization and suffocated by a stagnant political lobby. Saul was fascinated by the Middle East, and at the same time scared senseless by it: sitting there, he just thought about his old days in Lebanon, Israel, Iran; faraway ages when the history of peoples was yet similarly complicated, although back then he almost felt like he could matter somehow, make a difference; and that was why he had accepted certain compromises, bargaining most of his personal happiness in exchange for a remote possibility of _peace on earth_.  
_How fucking stupid._  
Peace on earth. The mere concept had him release a hollow little laugh into the steaming vortex of his Turkish coffee. Maybe it was something more like protecting America, his homeland, that had set the price of his personal sacrifice.  
_Now that's some real bullshit._  
He realized how perhaps it was just about _the power_. The vertigo of danger, the chemically-driven ecstasy from the sense of fulfillment and reward that came with things going as he had planned and directed them to go. He was a control freak, Saul Berenson. Scared out of his mind at the infinite possibilities of the puppets he moved. Probably good at the bottom of his heart, because truly, _who doesn't want world peace?_ More often, though, Saul realized he did not know where to find the moral core of his job - neither where to start searching for it, as much as he was concerned.

Carrie, though, was superior to that. He desperately wanted it to be true, because it would mean he had created something of a value, somehow helping evolution do its job of selecting a better-equipped offspring. She was probably the best thing he had accomplished in his life, possibly without even planning that: he had mentored her, he had been there to nurture her and help her grow in the most unfriendly environment for someone like her, with a heart so warm and capable of love, a genius so bright burning inside her brain, that it overcame the shadow of her mental illness. Carrie made messes. Carrie was unconventional, and dangerous to the system. Carrie predicted and averted the worst catastrophes and brought justice to the victims of the ones she had not been able to predict. Carrie had become a better person not through shutting herself off from the world but by learning, painfully and with many mistakes, how to take it in and breathe it out. Saul was proud of her as if he was her own father. And he feared for her, every day. And he hated her for being back into the Agency instead of sitting at Quinn's bedside and taking care of her child: even though he had been the one wishing she would come back, asking her to, several times and with ever-growing insistence, he was beginning to think he had tried to force her into making his own mistakes, just never getting truly out of that unforgiving loophole of a life. Despite those thoughts troubling him in the worst days, he was also convinced that she was tailored for that job, and that the real curse to her was that it fulfilled her possibly as much as her other life, the one she had had the courage of trying to live; and that the longing for another life was just constitutional to her as it was to Quinn, whose unfortunate circumstances had forced him out of the only existence he knew; if that was possible, Saul felt even sadder about him, having caught a glimpse of Quinn's depression and desire for something else in his empty, joyless fulfillment of any instructions he would receive from the Agency in the past years; not that clandestine operations were something to be carried out with elation, but since the days of Brody's long and excruciating watch, Peter Quinn seemed to have lost both the clever irony in his character and his devotion to being some sort of avenger, up until turning into a machine had shoved him straight into the arms of the enemy, a bottomless pit worse than death itself for someone like him. Saul had visited him once before flying back to America in December, and had made a point of never wanting to see Quinn like that anymore for as long as he would live.

"Welcome to Istanbul." Gifting him with one of her rare smiles, Carrie sat down in front of him at the café.

"Carrie, hi. I didn't see you coming." Saul fell back into the smells and noises surrounding him, slightly dizzy from his journey into the realm of contemplation.

"Are you okay?" She sounded preoccupied. "You seem troubled."

"It's the jet lag. I landed only a couple hours ago, came straight here. The arbitrate will begin only tomorrow or the day after." He muttered, and Carrie realized he was not exactly eager to get to the point of their meeting.

"Saul, I met Numan two weeks ago."

"I gathered that. And...?"

"He showed me something." She threw a quick glance around, then picked something from her purse. "Do you know these men?"

On the low, artfully carved wooden table lay two photographs taken by security cameras. Saul raised his brow.

"Depends."

"On what? Do you fucking know them or not?"

"Carrie, if you dragged me all the way here to tell me you want to snoop into Israel's foreign policies, you should've anticipated my response."

"So he's an Israeli. I kind of got that from the kippah and the attitude." She whispered, more to herself than to the weary old man in front of her.

"The attitude?" He asked, suspiciously.

"Yes." She bit her lower lip. "The _attitude_. Because... there's more I've seen."

"Oh, no."

"Numan..." Carrie hesitated. "He decrypted the firewall in the server-based information relay connecting Israel and Russia."

"Carrie, if he did that we cannot protect him, whatever he tells us. We would be owing the whole of Anonymous if that was our policy."

"Fine, whatever. But listen to this." She pushed a recording device towards him. Saul looked at her in utter resignation.

"Do you really want me to know?" He asked one last time.

"Shit, Saul, do whatever the hell you want." She sat back. "Just decide for yourself, for once."

A few minutes later, Saul removed the earplugs. In his eyes, a foreboding look.

"What the fuck is this, Carrie?" He asked plainly despite his choice of words.

"Numan thinks these two are the couple in the photographs." She shrugged. "I don't have any idea who they are, but the recording was taken from a private hotline between Israel and Russia."

"Ah, that one." He whispered.

"Yes, that one." Carrie sat up and bent forward. "The one which was all over the news in Tel Aviv after Putin's visit, last year." She lowered her voice. "Right before the war with Iran."

"What are you implying, Carrie?" Saul threw an apprehensive glance around. "That Russia is being involved?"

"Maybe."

"We cannot look into that, not now, not here."

"Saul, if Russia is taking sides in this war, then we should look into it." Carrie tried her most effectively reasonable tone, the one she exploited so well to convince him she was right. "What if they're into the war and we don't know? They're not in a position for that." She remarked.

"No, they're not." He admitted.

"With our government pressing everyone in the West for an intervention in Ukraine, and NATO pulling back from that to avoid another Iraq, you know, to _stay out_... And then fucking Russia meddles with a foreign war..." Carrie joined her hands. "Saul, I don't trust the Russian establishment, nor the Israeli. This war could blow us all up tomorrow."

"You _will not_ look into that, Carrie." Saul sat back. "You're in Turkey, your office ends next year. Meanwhile, Israel's none of your business, as long as Turkey itself is not involved in this mess."

A few moments of silence followed. Then Carrie's lips tightened, her knuckles pale from the clenching of her purse.

"These two were trading." She hissed. "We both listened to them talking about a remarkable amount of money being exchanged. I wanna know _for what_." She stood and grabbed her leather jacket, angry but contained; this new way of hers had scared Saul since he had seen it in Berlin the year before. He followed her out in the street.

"Carrie!" He called. She turned back.

"What, Saul? What's more to say? Just pretend we never met, it's gonna be fine." She replied sarcastically, placing both hands on her waist, standing right in front of him, piercing him through with her stare.

"You don't need to _atone_. For anything." The words almost slipped out on their own. Saul knew there was no going back from there.

"I don't have anything to _fucking_ atone for." She hissed. "I just need to do my job. Which _you_ dragged me back into."

"You don't understand." He retorted. "There's a line, Carrie. A fucking line."  
Carrie froze. Those words. Quinn's voice from two years earlier. Another time in their lives. She did not find the strength to reply to that comment. Saul approached her.

"If you take things personally... If you _do that..._ You'll end up _like him._ " He regretted his words almost instantly, but now he had said them, and he felt lighter. He felt like he had done her a favor, finally uttering aloud his fear for her. Carrie's stare was nothing but ice-cold.

"Don't ever say that again." The dry, warm breeze was messing up her ponytail, and dust was being lifted from the sidewalk, her light jacket waving in that strange April late-afternoon weather. "You don't get to _mention_ him. He was only doing what _you all_ were asking. You," She pointed at him. "And fucking Dar, you dragged him back into this hellhole. He only wanted out. Like I did."

"He made his choices. Ill-fated ones. He took all he did _personally_ and that's nobody's fucking fault." Saul lowered his voice, people in the street were already looking. "And you're doing the same, pursuing this."

"Was it _ill-fated_ to not kill me?" Carrie retorted, ignoring Saul's remark on Numan's intel. "As much as Quinn was aware of, _you_ were asking him to take me out."

"He fell in love, Carrie." Saul exhaled. "The same as I did with Alison. He was blinded by that, that's why it all happened."

"No. You don't fucking blame him." She raised her brows, feigning disbelief. "That happened because, _surprisingly_ , you can never fucking tell friend from foe. Never."

"He fell in love and he could not perceive things clearly. And you never saw that. Until he almost got killed to save you on his own. That I call _taking things personally._ "

"Don't you think I know that?!" Tears were prickling her eyes. "I'm just saying, it's not his fault."

"Sometimes you leave me wondering what you _do_ know, Carrie."

"I told him I'd take care of myself. I was about to leave. Forever."

"Everybody saw he idolized you, and all that happened to him was a bad choice after another," Saul's pitch was higher, somehow less secure, but he continued "and now he's wasting away in a railed bed, staring and shitting himself, and you're here, wanting to save the world."

"You think I should've spent the rest of my life changing his diapers?" Carrie's voice broke. "To make up for something I did, or didn't do? Like, I don't know," She raised her stare. "Fighting to survive?"

"That was harsh. I'm sorry." Saul looked away.

Carrie knew that. And yes, she _would_ have spent her life with him. In a different world, maybe, without war pushing at the borders of Europe. Without knowing that Quinn would have ended his life with his own hands, if he only could have, to set her free from devoting her entire future to taking care of him.

"You're overwhelmed by remorse, Carrie." Saul remarked, more gently this time. "And," He put on his fedora hat. "I won't allow you to pursue anything springing from that." He stopped a taxi. "Nobody has ever stopped a war to avenge their ghosts. Wars like these, they're never _personal_."  
He got in the car and slammed the door closed, then disappeared into the traffic of evening rush hour.


	4. May Day

Springtime in Washington was Maggie Mathison's favorite time of the year. She liked how the occasional rainy day would leave a smell of washed grass lingering on for some time, while her garden was starting to bloom in an explosion of colors popping out in the sunny mornings of early May. Her daughters, Josie and Ruby, would wake up happier and almost never late for school, and everybody was overall radiant at the prospect of warmer days, while even her patients at the hospital seemed to complain less and recover more quickly. On Sundays, Bill and the kids would organize barbecues or fishing trips, even though her children, now teenagers, were starting to spend more time on their own, mostly downtown with their friends, shopping for clothes they would despise come next year, and enjoying the free wi-fi at Starbuck's to post group selfies on their Facebooks.

Maggie's world had been under constant change in the last years, not just because of her girls growing up, or thanks to a newfound intimateness with her husband, both of them finally free from the duties of early parenthood; her father had died three years earlier; her sister had become a mother, and moved to another continent. Most of the time, during Carrie's early days as a parent, Maggie lived in fear that something terrible would happen to her niece, Frances: either being forgotten in the empty house or her car seat, or left on her own devices for an entire day without being fed or changed, because some bad guy needed chasing on part of Franny's mother. Maggie had been present for most of Carrie's post-partum depression, and she had done her best not just to prevent a catastrophe, but also to educate her beloved sister on what really mattered in life, besides averting wars: nonetheless, even though Carrie had eventually come to terms with her new role, Maggie was still unconvinced that all she had gone through was mere post-partum depression; when Carrie had announced her pregnancy, it was clear she was not looking forward to having a baby, but was somehow holding on to that child with the strength coming from despair. Their father was better at dealing with Carrie's difficulties, and Maggie missed him deeply also for that: as much as she had tried, after his death she had never been able to embrace her sister's fears and hopes as he would have done, and to reach that same intimacy Carrie had with Frank. Sometimes, she had felt more like her sister's guardian, rather than her friend: providing her with medicine, keeping an eye on her when she was with the baby, trailing her mood shifts, noting them down to find a pattern that would signal a relapse into the down-phase of her illness.

Nonetheless, there had been moments when Maggie and Carrie had been the closest: rare but crystalline, perfect, pure minutes of chemistry flowing between them, when their love for each other was truly exploited.

* * *

**Three years earlier**

"Mags." Carrie's unusually uncertain tone startled Maggie awake.

"Yes hon, I'm here." She sat up and grabbed her sister's hand. Carrie was panting heavily, though she was trying to contain herself. The fetal monitor was flashing its data regularly in the back of the room, a long cord extending from it all the way to Carrie's stomach.

"I don't think I can do this, Mags." Carrie sighed, leaning back with her head reclined, pressing against the plastic headboard of the bed. "Ouch." She clenched her fist in Maggie's hold.

"It's gonna be a few seconds, hold on." Maggie threw a glance at the monitor. The contraction was almost over. Carrie relaxed. She looked even thinner, dominated by that prominent, perfect roundness: Maggie realized how unnatural a baby bump looked on Carrie, as if that was the materialization of her lack of enthusiasm for this child of hers, coming to this world presumably by accident, with no father at its mother's side, with no preparations for a cozy bedroom, no wall-painting, no baby shower. She had tried her best to organize her sister's pregnancy around the upcoming joys of parenthood, but Carrie's feelings were impermeable to anything revolving around the birth of her child. She had worked till the last month of the pregnancy, or at least that was what she had been telling them when she would come home late at night: not that it was hard for Maggie to believe her. In the past year, since the attack to the CIA headquarters, Carrie had been involved even more in whatever it was that she did at Langley, occupations whose nature was unknown to Maggie, who on her part realized it was probably safer for her not to know, not only because of a contract possibly binding Carrie to complete secrecy, but also for her own sanity. Maggie _preferred_ not to know. All she cared about was the wellbeing of her only sister. And that pregnancy had thrown that dangerously off-balance.

"Carrie, do you think I can get a soda? I'll be gone for five minutes, top." Maggie stood up tiredly. "Dad may be already here by then."

"He's fucking late." Carrie hissed, squinting her eyes closed in the pain of another contraction.

"I know. I sent him to Walmart on his way here  to get you a change of clothes. You didn't even bother to pack that."

"I forgot."

"Yeah." Maggie whispered, as she was closing the door behind.

It was the middle of the night on a rainy Friday, strangely void of emergencies. Maggie wondered how her own night shifts at the ER were filled with crazies and gunshot wounds, whereas those colleagues of hers were probably playing cards in the on-call room that night, while she assisted someone who probably only wanted to be left alone. She picked a handful of coins from the pocket of her oversized sweatshirt and sent a text to her husband, reassuring him his sister-in-law was to give birth by dawn. The waiting room faced a maternity-dedicated section of the car park, so that family and friends could come and go as they pleased, without crowding in the main hall where the patient-reception counter was. In the dead of night, only the thunderstorm outside could be heard.

"Is Carrie okay?" A male voice had her turn back abruptly. He was standing in the door frame, a tall, skinny man in blue jeans and a gray shirt with the sleeves rolled-up. He looked concerned as much as rain-soaked, although she had no idea who that was and why he was asking about her sister giving birth in the middle of the night.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" She asked, trying to mask her suspicion with politeness. He came closer and hinted a smile. Maggie realized he was probably even more embarrassed than she was.

"A friend from work." He muttered. "Sorry I scared you."

She relaxed. _Those people_.

"Are you used to crash weddings and funerals like this?" She joked, more at ease now.

"Kind of." He replied, shyly. "I was just worried." He began fiddling with his car keys, looking away. Maggie felt a bout of tenderness for this young man. She started wondering about him.

"Let's sit." She invited him. "Would you like some hot tea? If you don't mind, it's probably chemicals in tea taste." She joked, pointing at the vending machine.

"I'm good, thanks." He sat down beside her.

"I was just... I got off from work, and," He hesitated. "I drove by your house to... and... your husband said you'd been gone for an hour or so."

"We've been here the entire evening." Maggie said. She did not even mind asking him to introduce himself. That was not something the CIA did. _A friend from work_ was probably not even allowed a phrasing. "So, yeah," She continued "We're probably gonna get there in a couple hours. Everything's going fine." She smiled.

"Good." He rubbed his forehead, staring at the posters in front of them promoting Medicare, safe sex and Dyslexia Awareness Month, probably without even truly seeing them beyond the veil of his own awkwardness. "Good... Okay then." He stood up. "Sorry for bothering you, and thanks for the update." He went for the door and took a step outside.

"Should I tell Carrie you dropped by?" Maggie asked quickly.

He turned back and did not answer immediately, piercing her right through with his clear, crystalline stare for a few seconds.

"No, don't worry about that." He replied, gently. "I was just thinking of her." Then he got out in the rain.

She followed him outside, feeling that may be her only chance. He was already halfway through the isle separating the first line of cars from the second.

"Are you the father?" Maggie shouted, her voice almost silenced by the thunderstorm. He stopped walking but did not turn. She finally reached him.

"I'm sorry, I..." She began. "Carrie's being _so_ _secretive_ about this. And she's so... miserable."

He turned back. The saddest look in his eyes, half resigned, half heartbroken, made Maggie regret instantly her idea of bringing up the issue.

"I know she's miserable. She's been through a lot." His voice was softer when he spoke again, a half-smile curving his lips. "But she's stronger than you think. She's the strongest woman I've ever met."

Maggie stood there wordless, for the first time hearing someone who was not Saul speaking so high of Carrie. She knew now that the gentle, shy young man was not Carrie's baby daddy. His silence sort of spoke for him. But Maggie could not decipher his attitude towards Carrie, if not for some deeply rooted affection she could not picture her sister causing in anyone who was not willing to also see her at her worst. She wondered what they must have endured together. And once again, she decided not to ask. He took out the car keys.

"He's dead." He declared.

Maggie froze.

"The father. He died." Quinn got into the car. "You should trust her more."

Three hours later, at dawn, Carrie gave birth to Frances, with Maggie and their father by her side. She did not scream, ask for medicine or pray aloud for it to be over. She pushed when instructed, and cried silently. The baby latched immediately and got her first meal. Then, they took her away. Carrie did not ask to keep her longer. Three days later, they were discharged. A month later, she was in Pakistan.

* * *

It was not until that horrifyingly brutal ISIS video circulated on the news that Maggie had realized that Peter Quinn, the man helping Carrie out at their father's funeral, almost exactly one year after Franny's birth, was also the mysterious visitor from that night at the hospital. Somehow, at the funeral she was too overwhelmed by her own grief to make the connection, and now, seeing him standing in front of her on the TV screen, it all made sense. Carrie had come back from Germany two months later, visibly shaken by what had happened, and this time Maggie did not need to ask: the ultimatum and lockdown in Berlin had been all over television and the internet, she did not need to ask whether her sister had had a role in the aversion of the attack: she was sure about that; even more, since Peter Quinn's video had circulated. So she had never asked for too many details, and she had tried to stay close to Carrie without intruding, always perceiving the weight of guilt in whatever Carrie said about Berlin, and Quinn, as if she felt somehow responsible for his unfortunate fate. Maggie knew Peter Quinn was still alive and was dealing with severe disability, and her medical education made her aware of all the issues associated with disorders of consciousness such as his. Thus, she had tried her best to take care of her niece in those hectic days, as she had been doing since the month before, unsuspecting of what would soon be happening: she had accepted her sister's request to prolong Franny's stay without the blink of an eye, knowing that Carrie was taking care of Peter Quinn.

Two and a half years had passed between their departure to Germany and their settlement there, and Maggie knew Carrie had been truly happy and serene. She had confronted Saul Berenson one day in January about that, at her doorstep, him asking her to pick Carrie's mind about coming back to the CIA. It had not been quite a friendly exchange, and Maggie resented him for finally having his way with her sister. She lived in constant fear that Carrie would go back to her prior self, the alcohol and pills, the promiscuity. But every time they talked, Maggie saw in her the same person she had seen for the last three years: she was finally accepting that her sister was in a better place, mentally, despite the awful events she had witnessed. And every time, she struggled to force her to share what she could with her. Because some things never change, and her little sister was still all alone in a world where cruelty was the norm.

"Hi Mags! Good morning." Carrie's face appeared on the camera window. Maggie adjusted the screen and turned up the volume.

"Carrie, hi. Franny, baby, come here, it's your mommy."

"Where's she?" Carrie asked, smiling.

"Playing with the cat. She never leaves him."

"Aw."

"Yeah. Well, the cat's not exactly... uhm" Maggie disappeared for a few seconds, then came back into the frame holding a ginger, curly-haired little girl. "Here she is!" She announced.

"Hi Franny, love. Hi baby." Carrie got closer to the screen. "Would you give mommy a big kiss?"  
"Mommy!" Franny's small, chubby fingers touched the cold plastic where Carrie's face was. "Come out mommy" She chuckled.

"First, my kiss" Carrie rubbed her nose on the camera lens and Franny got closer to release a big, noisy kiss.

"I love you so much, my little bunny."

"You come home soon?"

Maggie and Carrie exchanged looks.

"Mommy will visit for your birthday, honey." Maggie said, tentatively.

"When's my birthdae?"

"Soon, baby."

Carrie looked away, probably fighting some tears Maggie could not see. Then she turned back to the screen.

"Franny, listen to me. Will you?" She asked, in the sweetest tone she could find.

"Yup."

"Are you being good to your auntie?"

"Yup."

"And to Josie, and Ruby? And uncle Bill?"

"Yup! We play all the time!"

"Good girl." Carrie smiled. "Now, mom needs to play with a few people before she can come home. They all want to play. What do we say when someone wants to play?"

"Come play with Franny!"

"Exactly. And we play with all the kids. You know how much I love you, don't you?"  
"Like that!" Franny opened her arms.

"Yes baby. _That much_." Carrie's lip trembled. "I think about you all the time. I tell all my friends I'll come get you when we're done playing."

"Can you come _now_?" Franny insisted.

Maggie kissed her on the cheek and looked at Carrie.

"Franny, remember your book, the one we always read?" She asked, her gaze fixed on her sister.  
_Don't cry, Carrie. Keep it up, love._

"Do Super Heroes." Franny nodded.

"Yeah. Well." Maggie was trying her best. 'Do Super Heroes Have Teddy Bears' was Franny's go-to bedtime story. "Remember? The boy and girl with the blankie as a cape."

"Yup." Franny replied, looking at her attentively. On the other end, Carrie was listening.

"Your mommy is a superhero, you know." Maggie whispered. "She has all sorts of magical powers. It's her job."

Carrie could not help but giggle. Maggie was clearly better than her at this.

"Like what?" Franny asked. And then, looking at Carrie. "Like what powers, mom?"

Carrie hesitated. That was unexpected.

"I..." An epiphany. " _I can fix things_."

" _Mommy_." Franny whispered, in awe. Maggie nodded at Carrie from behind.

_Go on, Carrie._

"It's true," She added. "Your mommy can fix many things. Like in the book. She only needs a blankie and string as cape."

Franny bounced, excited.

"And," Carrie continued. "I am learning _to fly_."

"To fly!"

"Yes, to come back to you."

"Planes fly." Franny replied, plainly.

"But I'm gonna be faster, you know. So I can be there when you turn 4."

"And we'll have a party?"

"Absolutely."

Franny seemed pacified. After all, for the time being they only had to provide her short, simple answers to her momentary inquisitions. She was too young to form a judgment besides missing her mom, mostly when she was reminded of her. Maggie rocked her to sleep while doing small talk about family and the weather in Turkey, then she carried her to her bedroom upstairs. A few minutes later, she was back to Carrie.

"So how are you?" She asked, tentatively.

"Fine."

"How's work?"

"Fine." Carrie hesitated. Now or never. "Maggie, there's something I need to tell you."

Maggie's heart sunk.

"What is it?"

"I may be gone for a few weeks."

"Oh, okay. Okay." Maggie sat back, somehow relieved. She had feared another plot twist in her sister's life. It was just work. "Where are you headed?"

"..."

"Got it. Fine." Maggie could not decipher her sister's look, but it made her nervous. There was something she was clearly worried about. She knew there was no point in asking, though. "Carrie, you know we all love you so much."

"I do."

"And," Maggie felt like this may be the time to say what she felt. In all the commotion following Berlin, and her short stay in America, they had not gotten many chances. "What I told your daughter earlier..." She smiled. "It's... because I'm proud of you."

Carrie was caught by surprise.

"..."

"You're the strongest woman I've ever known." Maggie's memories were back to that rainy night. "And he would tell you that too. He told _me_. The night you had Franny."

"He who?" Carrie shrugged. "Nobody was there besides you and dad."

"Peter Quinn. He dropped by. Didn't want me to tell you. He cared a lot."

Carrie tried to mask her surprise. "I... loved him deeply. I think he was my only friend."

"He's still alive, Carrie." Maggie exhaled.

"I know. He must be feeling so fucking lonely." Carrie shook her head. "Well, I've no idea what he _can_ feel." She admitted. "I'm just afraid he's gonna wake up, or... _worse_ , and I'm not... and _nobody_ is there. "

"You can't anticipate that. You can't sit and wait forever." Maggie shrugged. "But back then, he told me you would be okay, and look at you. He was right."

"Do I look okay to you?" Carrie whispered. "'Cause... I'm so _not_ okay. I feel awful." This time she started sobbing silently.

"You wouldn't recognize yourself from five years ago. You... made many right choices." Maggie choked a bout of tears. "He could see right through you, while all we could do was tiptoe around you."

"Why are you telling me this." Carrie sighed. "Why now?"

"Because," Maggie leaned forward. "Because I think you need to know how we all feel about you; whatever crazy project you might be about to pursue." She tried to joke, but she was concerned. Carrie saw that.

"He was so awkward, that night, and worried. _Sweet_." Maggie added. "And... he wasn't even carrying an umbrella, you know. Soaked to the bone, he was."

"Yeah. He's kind of... _frugal_." Carrie smiled, her nostalgic gaze raised as if she was physically looking at her memories of Quinn up above on the ceiling. "Thanks, Mags."

"Any time."

_I wonder what the hell it is about me that they all like so fucking much._

* * *

 

She started packing a few clothes, her laptop and satellite phone; she went to a drugstore and grabbed some hair dye in a shade much darker than her natural color. Eventually, she got her _other_ passport from the top drawer of the ergonomic, glass-top desk and placed it on top of her sling bag, rehearsing her new name and personal information. From time to time, her thoughts were interrupted quite annoyingly by a vision of her inevitable, upcoming confrontation with Saul. It was not the first time she refused to color inside the lines, but going on an unauthorized mission involving spying on Israel, Russia and Iran was way, _way_ outside those lines. Nonetheless, she knew the rules and she knew Saul could not bend them for her. As always, she had confided in him, more to tell someone (and who, other than him?), rather than to get his approval. Still, she was upset that he had tried to make it all about her guilt, or whatever he had decided she must be feeling, over Quinn.  

That same afternoon, he texted her. There was not much more he could do, except giving her the name of the kippah man and the address to a safe house in Tel Aviv. He said to be careful and that he trusted she could extract herself "afterwards", though he would try to keep in touch. Carrie exhaled and sat back on the couch, observing her tidy, essential living room with the packed bags placed near the coat stand at the front door. Even though the scrawny Russian was still unidentified, at least she knew who to look for in Tel Aviv: she unchecked that item in her mental list, and texted Saul back before shutting down her regular phone.

_Well, fuck you very much Saul. I'll be in touch._

For the first time in months, Carrie felt _the thrill_. That night she was on a plane to Israel.


	5. Schocken Street

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

Matthew, 27:51

* * *

 

It was a short flight. Carrie seamlessly went from the plane to a taxi, a stroke of luck granting her the shortest immigration line and a couple of officers who were probably too concerned about the concurrent landing from Beirut, with two-hundred men and women, each a possible enemy to Israel. Tel Aviv was safe, if not for the occasional missile strike alarm going off in the middle of the night, gathering people in basements, garages, cellars and underground parking lots, where they anxiously waited for fire that would not come, until the the sirens would hush and the sun would rise.

And then, the fire came.

The first Iranian warhead hit Tel Aviv on the evening of a warm, late-spring Saturday in May, the festive day of the Jewish, whose veil of tranquility was torn in two as the ancient curtain of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem upon the death of one of them.

"Fucking unbelievable." Carrie could not help but point her clenched fists against the concrete floor of the basement, stretching her arms, as if to balance herself even though she was already seated. "So much for the Iron Dome." She hissed, squinting her eyes closed as the entire building vibrated dangerously.

"...Or David's Sling, for that matter. The guys over at RAPHAEL must be feeling quite shaken right now. " Eli leaned back against the cold dry wall. "They did a nice job with the layered airstrike defense system."

"You don't say." Carrie replied sarcastically.

"Iran has twelve X-55 long-range cruise missiles purchased from Ukraine a few years ago, around 2001. The X-55 has a range of 2500 to 3000 kilometers."

"Guess they gave those the green light." Carrie declared. "I didn't think they were really gonna hit major cities."

"They must've loaded the warheads with all the crap they had." Eli tried to mask his concern. "Well, as long as they don't nuke us..."

"Yeah, well, go tell that to the guys over at Sde Dov." Carrie pointed vaguely in the direction of the blast. It was probably the second airport in Tel Aviv being hit. "I bet they're not exactly throwing a party there at the moment."

Eli closed his laptop and put it into a black neoprene case: there was no internet down there, and no point in looking for a connection under an airstrike; underneath his irony and the clever character he displayed, he was scared, and exhausted by his job at Haaretz, the most prominent left-wing daily newspaper in Israel, and the oldest. One-hundred years of free speech and liberal stances, and, for him, five years of bugged phones and proverbial mirrors being flashed at every corner, a bag always ready in case he needed to start his fallback procedure. It was like the Mossad, except he was not working for the Mossad anymore. The Mossad _hated_ him, in fact, because he had wanted out when they wanted him in, and, most importantly, because he now blogged for Haaretz. So they had him bugged and followed, so to be always one step ahead of anything he would publish, and just on case, see to it that he would not.

_Eli Goldberg now speaks the truth._

_Eli Goldberg is a double agent without being an intelligence agent._

Despite his spirit and stamina being shattered to pieces in the effort, Eli Goldberg was _proud_ of speaking the truth, and in fact he was deeply devoted to truth-telling now that he was a free citizen and not an officer of the State anymore. He was 40 years old _and a free man_. Tired, but free. Tall and bulky from heavy weightlifting in his graduate years, fair-haired with a golden scruff painting his cheeks, a deep hazel stare that could pierce you right-through from the days of the interrogations in the hectic atmosphere of the Intifada, old-fashioned in clothing taste; that night, he was wearing a white cambric shirt with large sleeves and suspenders, with light brown plain weave pants and leather shoes which seemed to come from a past century, and probably did, given Eli's passion for vintage items.

"Why are you here, Carrie? Seriously." He asked. "Israel is not the place to be at the moment."

"Nowhere is the place to be at the moment." She replied, heavily, as the sirens and blasts in the distance kept shaking the building every two or three minutes.

Eli shrugged. "Fair point. But _my_ country is being bombed by those fucking Shahab rockets as we speak."

"Eli." She turned to him, half smiling. "I know." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "This is messed up. But you need to trust me."

"Carrie." Eli shook his head in resignation. "I just wanna help you. As you asked me to. How long do you think your cover's gonna hold if we don't move things faster?"

"As long as I need to find what I'm looking for, _without endangering you_."

"Well, I don't think so. My bosses, they..." He hesitated. "They've already started asking questions."

Carrie heaved a sigh. "Fuck."

"Yeah. _Fuck._ " Eli whispered. "Carrie, I can help you, if you let me. You know I work for him. _Sort of_."

And that was the whole point of Eli Goldberg being a mole. American-born from a wealthy Jewish family, Eli had moved to Tel Aviv at the age of 6 when his father, a professor of Political Science, had obtained a tenured position at the University there, and the whole family had exercised their right to citizenship in the Promised Land of their ancestors. And so it was that Eli had graduated in Journalism and Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ending up being recruited into the Mossad, eventually opting out and turning into a free-speech blogger for Haaretz who _happened_ to be working as a policy adviser for Mordechai Gorion's Mal'akhiy Telecommunications. His Mossad-painted past and graduate studies had landed him that position, exactly as his bosses over at Haaretz had hoped to.

"So how's he like?" Carrie asked. "Mordechai Gorion?"

"A nice man." Eli looked away. "As long as he likes you." He added, quite disenchanted.

"Ah. Does he like you?"

"Yes. I think he does, for now."

Another blast hit the northern periphery of the city. The lights went off in the refuge. Those who had known war in their Foreign Affairs and Palestine-related jobs as correspondents sat in silence, while all the others tried to mask their panic with the help of the dark that had descended upon everyone.

Eli got a small torch out of his pocket and placed it in front of Carrie and himself, on the floor. Not for the first time he realized the fascination and mystery emanating from the woman in front of him: he had known her for ten years, seen her on a few missions while both of them were still working for the intelligence agencies of their countries, then lost track of her for some time.

* * *

**One month earlier**

"Hello?" Eli whispered, turning from the glass panel diving his office from the main lobby of Mal'akhiy Telecommunications, so that no one could lip-read his conversation. "Hello?" He repeated.

"Eli."

"Saul Berenson?!"

"In the flesh. Well. _Lato sensu_."

"Saul!" Eli stood up, a smile curving his lips. "How long has it been? How are you? What's up?"

"I'm in Turkey for a meeting. Direction of the European Affairs Section, that's what I got from keeping up with all the shit."

"You don't say." Eli took a deep breath. "But congratulations. Really. You need to hear some kind of sacred call to... you know. I didn't have a sense of hearing that strong." He joked.

"..."

"So how's Mira?" Eli asked.

"We got divorced."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's been quite some time. Show must go on."

"Yeah. Yeah of course..." Eli threw a casual glance around. The lobby was deserted; he was probably the only person working on a Saturday. That was what it meant to be trusted by Mordechai Gorion: being free to come and go and to hide your dirty little secret, such as using your policy adviser job as a cover to keep an eye on the company's moves and countermoves against the Histadrut, the biggest labor union in Israel, protected by the anonymity of your blog.

"So... still working for Mal Tel?"

Eli restrained a gasp. "How do you know...?"

"The right friends."

"Yeah." Eli sat down. "Yeah, Saul, you could've asked _me_."

"You wouldn't have told me."

"No." Eli smiled. "No, I wouldn't have."

"Listen, Eli. I think I need a favor."

"Saul, this is exactly the kind of thing I don't do anymore." Eli replied, dryly.

"..."

"Saul."

"What."

"There's no way I can help you now. You know I'm out."

"Oh, are you?"

"What do you mean? I'm a policy adviser for a telecom company now," Eli sat back, trying to mask his annoyance. "What do you think I can do for the CIA?"

"I'm quite sure that's not what I was told."

Eli hesitated. If Saul had talked to the right people, those who had been tailing him night and day since he had left his old occupation as a secret agent (seriously, how fucking stupid did that sound now?), he surely must know everything; so there was no point in looking like a dumbass trying to hide the obvious.

"Yes." He admitted. "Yes, I'm the _dangerous_ man behind that Haaretz blog."

"They know that."

"I know _they know that_. As long as my boss _here_ doesn't know, I'm going to be just fine."

"Eli, I've talked to Margalit Tzedek."

"..."

"She told me they're willing to cut you some slack."

"Why?"

"No clue why. Maybe maltreated factory workers do not represent a real threat for Israel at this point. Maybe this fucking war is keeping them busy enough to let you go."

"They're still afraid of me. They think I'll share some secret I've been sworn by, sooner or later."

"I told you, I've got to idea what's going through their minds." Saul remarked. "You're probably too boring even for the Mossad." He joked. "But they want your help. One last time."

"Fucking no." Eli hissed.

"Eli... _I_ need your help. It may be nothing. But I need it and they are willing to let you go free if you help me."

"This is unfair. I left that job."

"But you're not really a free man."

Eli weighted Saul's words. He had no partner, he had no friends in Tel Aviv, he tried to maintain a low profile in everything he did just to be sure he was not pressing any Mossad-sensitive buttons: weaknesses like loved ones and family could fatal in case he made an unwanted move, said the wrong words. Even in the blog, despite the appearance of anonymity, he treated topics where his liberal and in fact truly brave stances could lie, nonetheless, outside the perimeter of the Mossad's interests. His freedom was limited within the boundaries established by his own fear of saying something wrong, breaking the promise of secrecy upon his exit from that poisonous club.

"Right. But I _demand_ to be left alone afterwards. _For real_." He declared.

"I'm sure Margalit will keep her promise. As the Director, she's probably not willing to be publicly shamed by a persecuted Haaretz blogger."

"So what is it that's so important they're willing to let _me_ off the leash?"

"It's Carrie. Carrie Mathison."

"Ah." Eli closed his eyes.

_Carrie Mathison. Who else could it be._

"Where's she now?" He asked, casually.

"It's complicated." Saul paused for a moment. Eli could hear his breath on the other end of the line. "I owe her something, Eli. She was involved in what happened in Germany."

"I've heard she was out too."

"Yeah. She was. But I told you, it's complicated."

"It's always complicated with Carrie Mathison." Eli's sarcastic laugh reached the depths of his chest. He felt a bout of bitterness coming up his throat. "I'm not sure I can keep up with her, Saul. She's too fucking much for me."

"She came to me with something, and I wanna help her."

"So you came to me."

"Yes."

"And we've had this whole conversation, and _it was about Carrie Mathison all along._ "

"Yeah. But... It's real, Eli. They're willing to let you go if you help Carrie for me."

"I like her."

"I know you do."

"But she's the devil. She's fucking scary."

"I... know."

"And she's amazing."

"Yeah. She's coming to Israel. I..." Saul lowered his voice, then continued. "Would you help her find a cover job over at Haaretz?"

"Cover for what?"

"I'm not sure. She had a hunch. We'll tell you if and when it's time."

"I don't like to be kept in the dark."

"You're not in the position. Either you help me or you don't."

"I know I'm not _in the position_." Eli replied, resignedly. "I just hope this is not another mess you two are dragging me into."

"Thank you, Eli."

"Goodbye Saul." Eli replied bitterly, before hanging up.

* * *

 

The airstrike seemed to be going on forever. Carrie propped her knees up to her chest and adjusted the woolen blanket around her shoulder, then she just sat there in silence, arms hooked around her legs. She was as scared as her long history of war and terror let her: slightly. Perhaps, she realized, the empty rooms of her mind that were void of fear were also the ones void of love. She felt cold, and lonely, and dried-up: the excitement she had been filled with at the sound of the airstrike alarm had left her hours ago, and she was slowly realizing how meaningless it had been, how stupid it would always be to enjoy that kind of adrenaline; she felt sicker than any other time she had felt sick in her life; more than those days when she would swallow her pills and go out in the night having casual sex with strangers, more than that night in Islamabad when her visions of Brody had lulled her into an intoxicated sleep, more than the hours spent in Germany with Jonas in the other room, waiting for a signal to call the ambulance on her while she enumerated the lives she had annihilated just uttering the order to press a stupid button. Now more than ever, Carrie was convinced those deserted perimeters of her mind would never fill up, not even to have her be nauseated by whatever sensation they would be about to spill all over: not even the love for her child seemed to be enough to furnish those empty rooms now, as she realized she would not have been there if she had just made one simple choice many months earlier: the choice to stay out of it. Painfully, Carrie was also embracing the idea that those solitary hallways inside her had been walked by people by whom she had only been touched collaterally: where such irremediable sickness was, love could not be born. If not for the stinging pain and dark, unfathomable depth of her feelings for the father of her child - now so far away she could not help but see as the stuff of another reality -, nothing else could ever populate those wastelands; neither the safety of Jonas's embrace, nor the warmth of Quinn's kisses, his utter and selfless devotion to her, had been able to melt the ice propagating like a disease throughout her veins: what did not scare her, could not grow inside her. The seeds of those feelings which could comfort and heal her were just destined to an early termination: she felt like she would never be able to return the love she was given, because every time something poisonous would sneak in from a blade of space in the doors of her mind and nest inside it: something like the urge to pursue a mission in the very heart of danger. In the dead of night, Carrie realized how unfair she was being to herself, and how truly and deeply she wished to be with Quinn one last time, to see him open his eyes and kiss his lips and feel his arms around her again, to tell him she would protect him, that no one and nothing would ever hurt him again, that she would be with him forever. She realized she would be okay with everything she had not been able to accept, even Jonas's theory that her life in Germany was not destined for eternity, because that was not who she was; she would be finally able to make peace with the last image of Brody she had in her memory. She would resign to who she was and embrace herself without lies, and maybe she would manage to be the person who does not drive everyone she loves to the edge of a precipice.

_If you let me live tonight._

_Please, let me live._

The lights came back on.

They walked out of the refuge to a silky, pink sunrise over the city: Carrie and Eli stood in silence, shivering in their woolen blankets, staring blankly at the break of dawn, void of thoughts and drained of any emotions. The damages seemed minor and confined to the airport over at Dov field, and the airstrike civil protection plan had seemingly worked in avoiding casualties in the surrounding neighborhoods. A few people had been injured from the falling debris in the immediate proximity of the air traffic control tower, and a bad fire had engulfed the Israir Airline hangars, fed by some stored kerosene tanks, destroying two aircraft. The warheads had only partially reached their objectives, showing that Iran's medium-to-long-range missile program was still under development: while two Shahabs had hit Sde Dov, two more had exploded over the Sinai desert, completely missing their aim. The news reported images of the Israeli troops aligned at the eastern borders of the Country, and praised David's Sling, the airstrike-defense layer just above Iron Dome; Carrie, Eli and all those who knew the truth praised Iran's missile system's weakness for being spared a firestorm.

* * *

 

**Three weeks later**

**May 31, 2016**

**Metropole Hotel, Tel Aviv**

"Carrie."

"Eli." She pulled back, making room for him to enter. "Please, come in."

He walked in, throwing a cautious glance around, then stood nervously in the small carpeted entrance of the Metropole Hotel room 305.

"What's going on?" She asked, worriedly. "You look like you've just had a brush with death."

He shrugged. "I kind of had."

"What the hell?" Carrie got closer; placing both hands on his shoulders she felt his muscles tensing up. "Eli?! Are you okay? What happened?"

"I think I know something." He muttered. Carrie noticed he was shaking.

"Jesus, Eli. I thought you could take the boy out of the Mossad, but... you know." She tried to joke. "Come sit with me. I'll get you some tea, or whatever. Do you still drink that much Scotch?"

"Yeah. I fucking do." Eli sat down on the edge of Carrie's bed, fists clenched in the pockets of his raincoat. "I could use some. Think I'm spiking a fever."

"Don't try with me." She laughed, in a relatively vane attempt to lighten the atmosphere in the room. "You crapped your pants. That's no flu." But she saw his paleness and dropped the irony. She got a small, round liquor glass from the low wooden cabinet near the tv set, and poured some Scotch from a courtesy-size bottle. She placed it into Eli's frozen hands.

"So, what happened?"

* * *

**12 hours earlier**

**Mal Tel Headquarters**

Mordechai Gorion sat down on the black leathered lounge sofa, not one detail of his Armani outfit being out of place in that briar-root paneled office with large, bright windows facing the Tel Aviv skyline from the thirty-fifth floor of the Azrieli Centre Circular Tower, where Mal Tel was based. Gorion was a happy man. Wealthy, cultivated, a family father with three daughters in Ivy League colleges and graduate schools, a son making a fast-moving career for himself in the Israeli Air Force, and a wife teaching Economics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Internet in the Middle East: what a challenge he had taken up for himself thirty years earlier, when he had decided to delve into the depths of the Promised Land to lay thousands of miles of cable. Mal'akhiy, _Messenger_ , Telecommunications, Gorion's love child: an enterprise that had given this tall, white-bearded sixty-year-old from a Polish family escaped from the Shoah all he had now. Nobody would have imagined that when he had rented his first office space, proposing budget telephone deals to low-income Palestinian families in the West Bank. He had been their phone provider all along the excruciating times of the Intifadas, and the Gaza bombings, and the retaliation that had followed in form of terror on Israeli buses, bars, theaters. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the Israelis were paying their phone and internet bills to his company, at prices adequate to their higher income and the economic situation for the lucky ones in the Country. As money flew into Mal Tel, information did, as well: those miles of Palestinian cable had been tampered with, as well as their extending branches perforating the ground below Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan: all formal enemies to this small but flourishing, extraneous conglomerate of dispersed humans now brought together by a written contract to make up for the worst of crimes; all unofficially paying for high-quality services they could not find within their own boundaries. Underneath the brand of Mal Tel lay an ocean of subcontractors with Arabic names and employees based in Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and Amman. Every few miles, in a box just few feet below-ground, listening devices had been placed. Every few miles, a relaying server decrypted small packages of data from each user's IP address and sent their contents to a clandestine branch of the net, before re-encrypting the batch and addressing it where it was intended to go. A small, unnoticed malfunction in that system, which had been thriving for almost thirty years, had mixed up the data flow from the Israel-Russia hotline and sent it to one of the relaying servers in Germany, before Numan's very eyes, earlier that Spring.

The official hotline between the two friendly countries, a symbol of their newfound interest in each other's economy, and politics, was now the major factor in what could be the least foreseeable plot twist in the destiny of the world. And Mal Tel was the mother of that hotline, Gorion its father: at an official ceremony, the first phone call between President Putin and the Israeli Prime Minister had been initiated by Gorion's own fingers pressing the green 'call' button.

"Eli, please, come in." Gorion stood up and went for the door to let Eli in. He invited him to sit and placed a small silver tray on the coffee table, with two ceramic teacups, hand-painted with tiny, delicate pink flowers and golden linings. He poured steaming water from a matching teapot and sank one teabag in each, methodically, or so Eli thought while each and every noise, from the water pouring to the ceramic lid of the teapot shifting slightly aside as Gorion tilted it, seemed to acquire an increased salience at Eli's ears in the pressurized silence between his boss and him.

"So, Eli." Gorion sat down beside his policy adviser and lifted his cup with both hands. “How have you been?”

“Fine, thank you. Absolutely fine.”

“Are you happy here at Mal Tel?” He inquired. Eli saw something in his eyes that upset him for no apparent reason.

_Fucking Carrie and her hunches. I’m going paranoid._

“Yes, I would definitely say so.” He articulated slowly, maintaining his neutral pitch and trying to erect a wall between his eyes and Gorion’s. An old Mossad move to obtain the perfect poker face: imagine an actual wall diving you from the other person. Nothing must penetrate it; you may even scream and shout at them with the utmost violence and without retaining yourself for anything in the world, but those noises shall not leak through any cracks in your virtual wall.

“I’m happy to hear it.” Gorion smiled.

“I’m happy to say it.”

“So. You’ve been my policy adviser for quite some time now, have you, Eli? How long has it been, two years?”

“Almost three years.”

“Ah, time flies.” Gorion joined his palms. “You’ve been priceless in many occasions, Eli.”

“I’m honored.” Eli declared.

_Here it comes. He’s going right into it._

“Have you ever thought about your career, Eli?”

“No. No, not really.” Eli sat back, trying his best to stay detached.

_Make it seem like we’re having a casual chat over tea. Relax._

“What is it that you used to do before Mal Tel?” Gorion asked. “I can’t seem to remember.”

_He fucking knows. How can he not._

“’Cause…” Gorion continued, his smile gone. “Esther might have told me you were her best student over at the University in Jerusalem.”

“I sure enjoyed working with your wife, yes. I remember those years fondly.”

“Ah, my Esther. One good student, and she’s all over them. And then they all fly away.” Gorion sipped his tea. “They go to America. They marry. They take gap years and never come back.” He placed his cup back on the tray. “But not you. You stayed for some time.”

“I told you, I liked the job there.” Eli smiled.

“And then, Eli? What happened then?” Gorion sat back, arms crossed.

_He wants me to say it. He won’t back down._

“I took a different career path.”

“You did.” Gorion’s lips tightened. “Youth. All the same, these days. Undecided. Dreamers. All chasing thrills and dangers.”

“What’s it got to do with…”

“All, Eli. _All_ of what I’m here to talk to you about.” Gorion declared. “You were with the intelligence for quite some time, and you made a name for yourself there.”

Eli swallowed a bout of emptiness. What did Gorion know about him, and how did he know it? He clearly knew too much already, but how could he not, he thought again. He was a powerful man with many connections in the Government and surely he had all the means of conducting an investigation into someone he was about to hire, even though Eli had been promised complete safety for himself and the cover he used to work under, while he was in the Mossad. Looking around the wooden-paneled room with a view of Tel Aviv, Eli felt miserable and stupid at the thought of Gorion not being able to penetrate the layers of confidentiality surrounding his past in the Mossad, old identity included. He clearly knew about it and, Eli was sure, would be using that knowledge against him very soon. Immediately, in all probability.

“So Eli, I know about you, son.” Gorion shook his head in feigned resignation. “You used to be a dreamer, a promise, and then you turned to the keepers of this country’s best secrets and became their long hand.”

“It was a difficult time, Mordechai.” Eli replied, making an effort to release his own grip on the teacup he was now holding aimlessly, without having taken one sip. “I had to make choices and that’s the choice I made.” He took a deep breath, focusing on the imaginary wall between him and Gorion. “I also decided it had been too much at one point, and frankly, I still think it’s never been my true call.”

“So you ended it.”

“I ended it.”

“Hm.” Gorion nodded. “But you’re not over with it.”

“I am.” Eli furrowed his brow. “Who told you otherwise? I wouldn’t be working here fourteen hours a day.”

“You don’t work here fourteen hours a day, son.” Gorion raised his hands. “Unless I’m mistaken with _that other_ job that you do… that sure makes fourteen, if you do it while you’re here doing _my_ books.”

_Fuck me._

“…”

“What do they say over at Haaretz? Are they happy about the pay rise I just approved, only to get my workers back _inside_ instead of having them chained at the gates of Mal Tel?”

Eli did not answer.

“Who could have stirred the pot… let me think.” Gorion pointed at his temple. “Oh, look. I got an idea.” He hissed. “You, Eli. _You._ With that despicable _other_ job of yours… Or should I say, your _main_ job?”

Eli stood up. “Mordechai, I think we’ve reached a dead end. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” He continued. “If you cannot trust _me,_ of all people.”

“Oh I’m sure _many_ people would like to be trusted by me at this moment. But no one more than you do, am I right? So you can sing your song to all who wanna listen.”

Eli went for the door. He grabbed the handle and turned to Gorion.

“I need to know if I can work here and be trusted by you. Otherwise there’s no point in my being here, entrusted with your money.” He clenched his fist on the cold, brassy ring.

“It depends.” Gorion stood too. “…On how much you care about your freedom. Those people sure do not.” He added.

Eli felt it coming. He was being blackmailed with his silence in exchange for his freedom. Anything Carrie was eager to know about this man was now much more than a possibility: what could possibly be worthy of such an open threat? He wondered when Gorion had started to be suspicious of his past, and realized he had probably been informed about him since the very beginning of his career at Mal Tel. All that was leading to one and only one development in that day which was starting to taste like poison to his lips: Gorion wanted Eli to keep to himself something big enough that, if he had not threatened him with the Mossad, it would have been out on the blog in no time. Eli started to feel confident again: against all reasonability, he felt there was still something Gorion did not know about him, and that would be his weapon against whatever he was about to tell him.

* * *

“…And so I told him I would move the money.” Eli continued, taking his last sip of scotch from the glass Carrie had offered him.

“To where?” She asked.

“UBS. Basel.”

“Shit, Eli. A bank account _in Switzerland_?” Carrie shrugged. “That’s the least original move I’ve seen lately.”

“Someone’s probably gonna withdraw the money soon.” Eli whispered. “And, Carrie, I’ve no idea what it’s for. Before you ask me.”

“Not a clue?” She raised her brow. “Come on, Eli. You must have a theory at least.”

“I think…” He began. “I _thought_ it was intended to someone over at the labor union to stop the protests over the pay rise the workers are expecting since half of them went to the lines to fight Iran.”

“But it’s way too much money, Eli.” Carrie laughed. “I mean, _fuck._ It’s _millions of dollars._ ”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t believe in that theory anymore. But I shouldn’t even investigate into that.” He admitted. “He threatened me to let the Mossad know I’m about to write about some classified shit if I say one word about the money transfer. He’s been waiting for this moment. To have me in such position.”

“It must be a hell of a secret.”

“Indeed. But I don’t give a shit about his secrets, Carrie.”

She sat up. “What?”

“I don’t care. What life am I living, truly?”

“Eli.”

“No, really, Carrie, fucking ask me.” Eli’s voice trembled for a split second. Then he regained his composure. “I don’t want to live like this. Either free, or… nothing. And you can take the former out of the picture now.”

“You can’t possibly think they’ll kill you.”

“It depends on the danger I pose to them. And this fucking thing must be big if they all went lengths to make sure I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gorion, my old bosses over at the Mossad. They’re all in this together; Gorion must have been told by them that I used to be an agent.” He declared. “And they also contacted Saul.”

“To ask you to help me.”

“Yes. So that I would be digging my own grave with Gorion. So he could have something concrete to accuse me of. I’m gonna expose all of them, Carrie.”

A few seconds of silence followed between them. Then Carrie spoke.

“You can’t do that.”

“I’m dead anyway.”

“No, Eli.” She stood there, arms spread. “You… you _cannot._ ”

“Not you, Carrie. Fucking please.” He whispered, now more resigned. Carrie looked at him and felt a mixture of terror and pity for what he had become. Could she see herself in that same dangerous, thorny mess of events shifting slowly and inexorably out of control? Was she similarly so interwoven with that way of life that trying to get out would result in an endless chain of threats and the mere appearance of freedom? The only answer she could give to herself at that point was positive. She chased that thought away quickly.

“Eli, I’m asking you… I’m begging you to help me with this.” She said, trying to soften her tone. “If you go out with this without us even knowing what really happened, it’s going to cause more damage than ever.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know. And that’s the point. We don’t do collateral damage. We aim where we want to aim. I came here to figure out something, and I won’t be sleeping under the threat of an airstrike every fucking night for nothing.”

“I’m tired, Carrie.” He whispered. “I’m so tired of this.”

“Me too, Eli.” She sat down beside him. “There’s a fucking blood trail behind me. All I’ve done is damage. To everyone.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should.”

“Saul told me you have a child.”

“Yes. And you know what? I had her with someone from work. Someone who died. My daughter has no father. And look where her mother is.”

“That’s… I’m sorry.”

“Well, don’t be. I should have thought about what I was giving her. Be sorry for her, not me.”

“You must love her so much, Carrie. You’re not heartless. You won’t be feeling like this otherwise.”

“I…” She felt the first tears prickling the back of her eyes. “I fucking know _now._ And that’s the problem, Eli. _That’s the problem_. That I’m not heartless.” She dried her cheek with her open palm. “I did not come here for nothing. Something’s up. Don’t step into that just now, please. Be with me.”

“Your fucking hunches.”

“My fucking hunches.”

* * *

 

**Istanbul**

**One week later**

_Saul,_

_I'm sending this to you through Numan: you can trust him. He doesn't know the contents of this text, and I am positive that he has kept his promise to not break the encryption before he was in front of you. I don't want anyone else to see this, not for now. You can type any replies in a text file and give it back to Numan in this same USB stick, and he'll encrypt it and send it to me through Secure SHell. Up until I'm not 100% sure of what's going on here, this is how we roll._

_I think we're in a mess. A six-figure transaction was made last week from our kippah friend's bank account, and I know that because Eli himself moved the money for his boss. The money transfer ended up in a United Banks of Switzerland account in Basel, and Eli initially thought it was related to some deal being cut with someone over at Histadrut, the trade union. But it's not proven: at the moment, the union is too involved in managing the drop in manpower due to the war, trying to negotiate higher pays for those who remained and are complaining of the pay unbalance with the soldiers. Our friend has no reason to move that much money from his personal account unless he's drilling up some mud, and I think that's what he was discussing with the man from Numan's phone call recording. Eli and I saw him again last week at the Metropole Hotel in Tel Aviv, he was at the bar, again, with Gorion. We got downstairs and they were chatting over tea. Gorion did not see Eli, and has no idea who I am. I need to find out if his Russian friend got access to that UBS bank account and what the hell is being exchanged for such a shitload of dollars._

_I'll keep in touch through Numan, try not to use the satellite phone for now. No one can know about this._


	6. Thou shalt not steal

“The case of both parties shall come before God. The one whom God condemns shall pay double to his neighbour.”

Exodus 22:1-9

 

 

“Eli? Where are you? Please call me back.”

Carrie hung up the receiver. For the third time in less than two hours, she had tried to reach Eli Goldberg, to no avail. She had stayed at the Metropole for long enough to see Gorion once or twice a week in the lobby, meeting white collars for dinner, or drinking with them at the bar. Clearly, he had a habit of conducting his business within the enclosed, anonymous walls of that luxury hotel in the very heart of the city, protected by the reverence everyone paid to him as a renown personality, one of the richest in Israel and probably in the world top-one hundred. Carrie would sit on a chintz sofa, sipping tea and reading the newspaper, her eyes peeking up over the spread pages of Haaretz or the Washington Post, or she would taste some pricy, fashionable recipe from the house chef at a small, round table covered with a pure white linen tablecloth, with silver cutlery shining warm reflections from a three-branched chandelier. Not one of Gorion’s moves, words or steps would escape her eyes and ears. She knew his habit of always sitting at the same side of the table he would share with his guests, being the center of the conversation in that savvy, fascinating way of his, always leading the way with new topics, reviving dying arguments, throwing in the occasional joke. He was a fascinating man, one to whom Carrie felt a thrilling attraction, whose secrets she felt the inexorable necessity to penetrate, a need becoming harder and harder to fight as several days went by without him making one single suspicious move.

That night, though, something had changed. Once again, Carrie had seen the scrawny Russian man from the phone recording and the photographs. For the second time since then, he was sitting at the hotel bar with Gorion. Once again, they seemed to be discussing a deal of some sort, the Russian man glancing worriedly around from time to time as Gorion gesticulated intently, accompanying with his hands words that Carrie could not make out. Eventually, they had exited the bar, walked the lobby from side to side and disappeared together in the dead of the middle-Eastern night.

“Eli, _for fuck’s sake_.” Carrie hissed, trying to keep her voice down as she moved fast, holding her purse in a tight grip to prevent it from flapping noisily at her side. “Answer your goddamn phone. I’m following your friend outside. Something must’ve happened.”

The solitary bleep of the answering machine saluted the end of yet another aimless call. Carrie was starting to get worried about Eli. In the week following the money transfer, he had seemingly vanished into thin air, never answering his phone, never updating his blog. She did not hold any hopes as to receiving news of him from the people at the newspaper, since he was rarely there in person to avoid being spotted by unwanted eyes.

The cold and damp air of a night promising the occasional early-June rainfall penetrated Carrie’s bones as she hurried through the streets of Tel Aviv in the dark. Major cities in Israel were not observing a curfew for the time being, even though people tended to stay in, opting for the enclosed, apparent safety of their houses as if no Iranian warhead could hit them there with respect to the possibility of being stricken while walking the streets of their neighborhoods. Observing the lit-up windows, Carrie pitied those families, westernized but living in a place where no true West could exist peacefully, escaped from a horrible persecution to gather in a Land promised to their fathers, where they were, and always would be, strangers nonetheless. Their fierce pride in facing yet another adversity, another war, made Carrie curious as to what could possibly be so important to them that they needed to keep it safe at all costs: after all, it was just a patch of dry land in a desert. And yet they had been fighting for it since the dawn of time.

Lost into her own thoughts, Carrie found herself in front of the Azrieli Circular Tower entrance, at the gates of Mal Tel. She had been following Gorion and the Russian man for less than half an hour and here they were now: another unoriginal choice, she thought. Now positive that the deal being cut over the phone call recorded by Numan involved the money being eventually transferred by Eli to the UBS account in Basel, Carrie wished she could penetrate the security shield, but she was forced to pull back when she saw the two men passing through a gate controlled by a magnetic card reader.

Someone grabbed her by the waist and pulled her away from the gate, a hand pressed on her mouth so as to keep her from screaming. “Carrie, it’s me.”

She was dragged to a side door, and then into what was seemingly a waiting room, smaller and more modest than those immediately facing the main lobby. Eli shut the door behind them and then lifted his hold on Carrie.

“Eli what the actual f…” Carrie began, turning back to him. When she saw him, though, she was lost for words. “Oh my god. What happened to you?” She asked.

He tried to catch his breath, leaning on the door handle as if it was his only way not to fall to the ground. Panting, he brought a hand to his chest and grabbed his shirt in an angry grip, as if to better control his own breathing. He was pale and sweaty, half of his hair was now gone and he had no beard. He seemed smaller, hunched and thin. When air started to flow normally through his nose, throat and lungs, he lifted his stare up to Carrie, who could see his eyes encircled in purple, sunken and misty.

“It’s happening, Carrie.” He whispered.

“What? What is happening?”

“The exchange. It’s happening tonight. They’re expecting the truck here in two hours.”

“The exchange?”

“Yes. Gorion made a purchase from our Russian friend, remember? I moved the money.”

“Eli, you know I’m not a fan of such suspenseful reports.”

“We’ve got two hours. Let me have a little fun.” He tried to joke, but his eyes remained dull and his lips only curved in a sad, hollow smile.

“So what do you know? And where on earth have you been all along?” Carrie asked, pulling her hair back with her fingers while standing in front of him.

“I was here.” Eli limped to a small, leathered couch sitting on the opposite side from the door, and plopped down on it, leaning back, eyes closed. “I was here for a week, in and out just to sleep, followed by his men, or the Mossad, I don’t even know anymore. But tonight,” He continued, without looking at Carrie. “Tonight, they’re here to collect the material.”

“What material?”

“I’ll let you guess.” 

* * *

 

“I fucking told you it was gonna be big.”

“I don’t know.” Saul sat back on his bulky office chair in the improvised study he had put together in Istanbul. The NATO arbitrate on the Russian plane flying across the border with Turkey during a flight over Syria, almost a year earlier, was taking longer than he had anticipated. Half of the coalition was against any sanctions against Russia, whereas the other half pushed for a display of supremacy carried out by moving nuclear weapons around the European bases. Saul was auditing the meetings as the Chief of European Affairs from the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, together with his colleagues from the other NATO countries’ agencies. They were working in teams to advise in favor or against the several proposed strategies that would come up during the arbitrate, using intelligence gathered from their field officers, in order to put together a picture as real as possible of any Russian interests in the middle-Eastern hellhole.

“Saul, do you realize what I’ve just told you?” Carrie’s expression betrayed her impatience to be believed. Saul realized she had not changed much from her younger years, always rushing to be ahead of life itself. “I risked my life there.”

“I know you did, Carrie.” He admitted. “But what should we do? I can’t exactly call Margalit Tzedek to ask her about it.”

“Saul, if a Russian government officer is involved in the exchange, it means Russia is planning on having their say in this war, and I would very much like to know why.”

“Last year, Israel abstained from voting the UN resolution against Russia in the Ukrainian civil war.” Saul reflected aloud. “They must be the best of friends at the moment.”

“Yeah.” Carrie followed. “And then _our_ relationship with Iran has improved.”

“They must know Javadi is our man. Don’t you think fucking Alison got a chance to tell them that too?” Saul reckoned. “They probably think Iran’s now irremediably lost as the ally it used to be.”

“Russia sold weapons to Hezbollah though, and I’m positive Iran’s controlling them. Why would they do that? I mean,” Carrie raised her brow. “You sell weapons to the enemies of your friends? What the fuck, Saul? My head is spinning here.”

“I know. No clue why they did that.” Saul poured some tea for himself, and pushed another cup towards her. “Although, if what you saw is true, they’re giving their new friends a big hand in the war now, whatever they must have done in the past that could look like they cared about their relationship with Iran.”

“You don’t say.” Carrie stood. “I need to look into the Russian party of the deal. We know Gorion is probably working for the Mossad, we know they want to conduct a clandestine operation to sabotage Iran with the help of the Russian government, and…”

“Carrie.”

“What.”

“Slow down.”

“Saul, _I was there._ With Eli. To whom _you_ asked for help.”

“Let’s talk about Eli then.” Saul stood too, and went for the window. He leaned against the sill, without looking at Carrie directly. “Do you trust him?”

“Of course I do.” She declared.

He turned back.

“Do you, really?” He asked again.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Carrie was growing more and more annoyed at Saul disenchanted view of her report from Tel Aviv. “He put his life at risk to help me look into Gorion’s spare time activities.”

“Indeed.” Saul whispered, more to himself than to Carrie. “When Mag Tzedek told me they were gonna let Eli off the leash, it seemed like the perfect timing.”

“What are you implying?” Carrie asked. “That they _made him_ show me that truck? That it was all part of a plan to deceive me?”

“Not necessarily.” Saul reflected. “But I don’t even want to _think_ about other possibilities.”

“You clearly don’t trust him though.”

“I’m just saying it seems all too perfect.” Saul reckoned. “Maybe he’s tried to take you down his own path, so you could see what he wanted you to see, and believe.” He spread his arms, defenseless in front of her as he always was, confiding only in his own arguments and their weight against hers. “Carrie, Eli is an outcast. He’s been an outcast for more than three years. Perhaps…”

“…Which is the exact reason why he’s helped me.” She interrupted him. “What’s he got to lose?”

“Exactly. _Nothing._ ” Saul remarked. “He’s got nothing to lose. Maybe he just wants to stir the pot, go out with a bang.”

“Saul, if we treated all our assets with this same mistrust, we wouldn’t have gotten very far down the road with our jobs.” Carrie declared. “I know the people I work with. And I’ve seen things myself.”

“I just…” Saul started, pacing the room. “I just… don’t think you’ve seen it all, Carrie. Even if we want to believe Eli, why would Russia go this far for a war that’s not theirs?”

“Maybe because empowering Israel means having an ally in the region where all the hype is at the moment.” Carrie turned to face Saul. “It means they could even get Israel’s help in bombing Syria in exchange for this. So that the ISIS war is won by _courageous Russia_ instead of us.”

“Perhaps.” Saul rubbed his beard. “Perhaps. But assuming we believe what Eli said and you saw, we know nothing of the Russian party in the deal.”

“Exactly. I need to find out who that man is.” Carrie insisted.

“But you need to make sure Eli keeps his mouth shut.” Saul remarked. “I like him, but he’s clearly in the worst position at the moment.”

“What else were you thinking?” She stood in the doorframe, arms spread. “Saul, I don’t even want to _imagine_ what could happen if this goes public. It needs to stay between the three of us, and Eli knows that too.”

“I fucking hope so.”

* * *

 

_Quinn._

_I’m writing to you because there’s no one else out there to whom I can tell the things I’m about to say. And I’m pretty sure you’d have loved to discuss this with me if only… If only._

_I went to Israel. I met an old friend of mine there, and he’s helped me find a job at Haaretz as cover for a little investigation I was carrying out on my own. It all began with Numan getting all excited about some stills he grabbed from the security cameras at the Metropole Hotel in Tel Aviv, and a suspicious phone recording… Which happened because he probably thinks clandestine life in Turkey is too fucking boring for him. So I went to Israel to find out who the men in the photographs and recording were, and it turned out my old friend Eli works for one of them, Mordechai Gorion, a telecom tycoon who laid thousands of miles of cable underneath the whole of the fucking desert: Eli is secretly a free-speech blogger for Haaretz so half of the Israeli establishment kinda hates him, and the secret services keep him on a short leash too, because he opted out a few years ago. I dug up some of Gorion’s personal shit thanks to Eli’s acquaintances as an independent information blogger and found out he’s tapped his own wires to gather information from all around Israel. He also got the official job of establishing the Israeli-Russian hotline last summer, while you and I were busy trying to find out who was trying to kill me. So Quinn, you’ve got no fucking idea what the hell is happening here. Gorion threatened Eli to sell him to the Mossad if he hadn’t helped him with what I’m going to tell you, and so it was that Eli helped Gorion move twenty million dollars in batches happening over five separate transfers to a UBS bank account in Basel, benefiting a Russian friend of his whom I’ve seen several times in Tel Aviv. I listened to them discussing the details of the transaction and I followed them to the gates of Gorion’s company, and now I may even know what the money was for.  
That night at Gorion’s company, a truck pulled up towards the back entrance, and three men got off. They spoke Russian to Gorion’s friend. Five bulky backpacks were unloaded and went downstairs, to the basement, where he keeps them under several layers of security: card, code, and finger print system. I think we’re dealing with the black fucking market of weapons here, Quinn. These people, they don’t play games. A purchase was made, and a big one. My biggest suspicion is that something’s going on between the Israeli secret services and Gorion to conduct some sort of clandestine operation to sabotage the war with Iran, and they’re using Eli as a pawn: think about it, Quinn. Saul was contacted by them right before I went to Tel Aviv, and they told him they would let Eli off the leash, and so he was compelled to help me out, and then Gorion told him he knew all about his past and present life and threatened him to tell everybody. So Eli was forced to dig his own grave by helping me and he was put in the position of having no leverage with Gorion, who has probably known about him all along because seriously, Quinn, how could a man like him hire anybody without investigating into them? Gorion must be conducting this operation with the help or blessing of the Mossad, and I’m kinda sure it’s all to avoid leaving any direct evidence of Israeli involvement behind whatever they’re planning: think about it, the secret purchase, those backpacks stored privately by Gorion, the Russian man acting as a mediator. It all points to their dirty hands. I think we’re on the edge of something momentous, and all Saul wants to do is wait and fucking see. I miss you._

The carefully folded paper sheet twirled and fluttered about for a few seconds in the breeze caressing the Marmara Sea at dusk, just before alighting on the ruffled, purple-tinted Eastern waters, sailing west towards the dark. Carrie lost sight of it and just sat there, gazing into the upcoming night, void of thoughts.

_A beacon, steering you clear of the rocks._

_  
_ She could still hear his voice in her mind; that she had not forgotten. Suddenly hit by the fear of this last memory of him eventually melting into the magma of oblivion, she could not retain a bout of nostalgia for the warmth of his hand in hers, for the sight of his peaceful sleep, the regular lifting of his chest driven by his quiet breaths. As she shoreline of Kumkapi got darker, Carrie contemplated the unlikely scenery of him waking before her very eyes, realizing, for the first time in months, that maybe she just did not want to see the depths of despair in his eyes ever again. Ashamed at her own thoughts, she still remembered his terrified stare, the confusion and the horror flooding his irises in the few seconds of consciousness he had gained back at the hospital in Berlin. She contemplated a lifetime of nightmares and healing that would just never come, because there was no healing for that kind of suffering, that irremediable sacrifice of oneself; there would never be any healing for someone who had simply renounced their worldly goods, their feelings and desires, their hope and ultimately, their humanity. Carrie relived their last conversation for the thousandth time, regretting the cold that had descended upon them, the unease of their glances: the years that had separated them seemed too many now, and the distance too much; she pictured his hopeful smile to her the night they had contemplated a life together, finally free from the burden of their respective life choices. Nothing of the Quinn she had met again two years later resembled the person she had left that night: only a few months before, when death had come onto him, he had embraced it easily, unburdened by hope. These were Carrie’s thoughts that night, as she gazed into the distance where sky and sea met, unknowing that up until the last moments of his conscious life, her friend had tried to escape his fate, driven by the faraway yet burning light of life, eventually pushing the ease of a timely death away, driven by the last spark of humanity warming up his disillusioned soul: the spark setting alight his own will to survive. Nonetheless, Carrie was unaware of much of Quinn’s thought process, and she could only see herself as yet another little push for him towards the brink of tragedy, his love for her bringing not hope and salvation, but chaining him into an endless loop of disgrace.

_You should have stayed behind. You should have saved yourself. You should have let me go and you fucking didn’t._

As she finished her words, whispering them into the murmur of the sea, someone caught her by the waist and covered her mouth. She tried to scream but a man’s hand pressured her lips and nose, and she could only breathe again when a dark cotton hood was thrown onto her and the hold on her was released, as she felt her body being lifted and placed in the back of a vehicle. After the doors closed, she started smelling medicine, and fell asleep from the anaesthetic.  
She woke up in a basement, the hundredth basement of what now seemed to her like an endless sequence of danger and fear, the hundredth kidnapping of her life, the hundredth cold and hard seat she was chained to.


	7. Three Days And Nights

  _For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer._

Psalm 32:4

* * *

**Kumkapi, Istanbul  
** **June 15, 2016**

“Carrie Mathison. Hello.” A calm, controlled male voice called her from behind. Trying to stretch her legs and arms in order to turn back, Carrie heard the tingling of a short, light chain locked to her seat, branching into four extensions ending at her ankles and wrists. In a twinge of pain to her calves and shoulders, twisted unnaturally in that uncomfortable position, she realized she could not move.

“Who is it?” She asked tentatively. “I need to move. I’m in pain.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His voice was closer now. Carrie heard him approaching, his steps echoing on the wet concrete floor all around the large, empty basement. Finally, he stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder. She turned to him, staring up from where she sat.

“Al-Amin?!” She tried to control her own relief, summoning the cautiousness she had been trained to show. “What am I doing here?” She asked.

He pulled a chair up to hers and sat down. Working slowly and in silence, he began lifting the chain from Carrie’s chair, and unlocking its four ends from her limbs. He dropped it noisily to the floor, and sat back, his gaze fixed into hers. They sat there for a few frozen seconds of complete muteness, and then he tilted his head slightly, as if to scrutinize her innermost thoughts.

“You came to me a few months ago.” He declared.

“I needed your help.” Carrie replied, calmly.

“You put my family in danger that day.” Al-Amin looked away. “I feared for them when I saw you at my front door.” He added.

“I’m sorry for that.” She began. “You… you were priceless. Your help was priceless. There were things that I needed to know, and if it hadn’t been for you…”

“Yes, yes. I know.” He replied. “I didn’t bring you here today to hear that again.” He stood up, hands on his hips. “You need to help us, Carrie Mathison. It’s time to give back.”

She sat in silence. The latest developments all pointed to a direction she should have foreseen, and now she could see that even more clearly. She let him speak first.

“We all are in great danger, Carrie.” Al-Amin declared. “Great, great danger.”

“I know.” She squeezed her left fist around her right wrist, shivering from the hours spent asleep in the wet atmosphere of the basement.

“But you don’t know what this danger is.” He continued, pacing the floor around her. “You have seen things that you did not understand. In Israel.”

_How does he fucking know I was there?_

“Please, go on.” She invited him gently.

“We know the meaning of what you saw. We know the danger.” He stood still, looking at

Carrie with a stare that could pierce her right through. He sat down again. “Carrie Mathison, you and I, we can stop this. But you need to do as I say.”

“Why would you _ever_ want my help?” She whispered.

“Because,” He articulated slowly. “We’re no terrorists.”

Carrie sat back, waiting for it. Al-Amin’s glance was sadder now. “We have come to know certain things, and we believe it would be dishonourable to hide them.”

* * *

 

**The day after**

**Çankaya district, Ankara, Turkey**

It took a few minutes to Saul to realize where he had spent the night. He was used to catch some sleep wherever he could, and he certainly was not missing his lonely apartment in Washington, DC. Nonetheless, he could not help his own panic from pushing at his chest, pressing his ribcage from within, when he computed the meaning of the sight around him. It was a small room, enclosed by an external wall of sorts, since no window was there for him to see the sky. Neon lights cast a light blue halo on all his possessions: his clothes lay tidily on a small desk, his shoes sat underneath a bony chair with a metallic structure and plastic seat and backrest, while his wristwatch and glasses rested on a small, round bedside table. He was wearing a cottoned t-shirt and sweat pants whose origins he could not trace at that moment.

_What the fuck._

He sat up.

_Oh. Oh, no._

He got off the low bed, his back aching from the thin, worn-out mattress. Going for the door, he grabbed the handle and twisted it. Surprisingly, it gave in to his push.

“Good morning, Saul.” The soothing voice of a dark-haired, tall woman welcomed him in a narrow hallway, lit by the same neon lights from his bedroom. “We were waiting for you to wake up.” She added.

“What the hell am I doing here, Asli?” He asked, impatiently. “Seriously.”

“I told you yesterday. We need your help.” She replied drily.

Half an hour later, he sat in her office. Asli Asani was the newly appointed Undersecretary of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization: a beautiful woman whose tremendous power was the natural completion of her strong character and the certainty with which she marched the male-dominated rooms of the headquarters, she and Saul had known each other for nearly twenty years, threading the destinies of the Middle East, sometimes as opponents, sometimes as allies.

“Asli, I’m not sure you can actually _hold_ me in here.” Saul commented drily. “Moreover, the rules of hospitality demand a little more regard than what I was given. Your people should know that best.”

“We are treating you well, Saul.”

“My back hurts from your goddamn mattress, but that’s not the problem.”

“No, Saul. It’s not.” She sat back, flapping her dark curls in an aura of perfume. “You are residing in my Country. Your people are allowed to do their work in my Country.”

“And we’re grateful for that, Asli.” He declared, calmly. “The job that we do, _together_ , is keeping the Islamic State at bay for the time being. God knows how we all need that.”

“Although,” She continued, fiddling with her wedding ring. “Nothing’s for nothing, Saul. We are allies. We work together.”

“Yeah, absolutely. We do.” Saul furrowed his brow. “Though, Asli, I’m not exactly sure I’m following you here.” His lips tightened in the effort to keep his composure. He could see what she might be after, and he was adamantine in not giving it to her before having a chance to speak with Carrie again, and most of all, to report to Dar Adal. Nonetheless, three decades of training had not made silence any easier: he needed to summon all his self-control, focus and drive to anticipate her arguments and to formulate adequate responses, to save himself from becoming a pawn in something greater than him and her both, something that could ignite a chain-reaction going beyond everyone’s control.

“What is it with you Americans?” Asli whispered. “Always so polite. Always so… restrained.”

“We’ve known each other for two decades, Asli. I’m not in the mood to fight with you over something I’ve no idea how to give you.” He declared, looking straight into her eyes. Their dance was extenuating, and slow.

“Are you exactly sure of that?” She asked. “Because, I haven’t formulated my request. And it may be bigger than us, Saul. It may be above us, and beyond us, to decide what I should ask and what you should answer.”

“A request? You don’t say.” He feigned surprise. “I was forcibly taken from my residence by your men. I wouldn’t call anything like that _a request._ ”

“We have reason to believe you have come to possess information that is of interest for my Country.” Asli declared. Her composure, all of her character would never have betrayed the gravity of that sentence she was uttering. Saul sat in silence as she continued.

“We have tried to contact your Chief of Station. She is not at her seat.”

Saul restrained his surprise at the news of Carrie’s absence from her office in Istanbul. She had not informed him of any new plans since their last encounter a few days earlier.

_Where are you, Carrie._

“So,” Asli continued. “Since she’s nowhere to be seen, I’ve taken advantage of our… _preferential_ relationship. Maybe between us we can work something out.”

“As in…?”

“As in _you telling me_ why a Turkish citizen has made contact with Carrie Mathison to share classified material with her, and not us.”

“Asli, I trust my people. I would never give anything up that they have not confirmed.”

“So your Chief of Station has _not_ come in contact with…”

“I know nothing.”

“But we arrested him in a basement in Istanbul, and found incriminating material there.” She said, calmly. She knew he would get there; she only needed to drive his replies where she wanted them to go. “Like, a USB stick with a few interesting photographs.” She placed the prints on her desk. Saul did not even need to look at them, but pretended to.

“The boy hasn’t talked. He’s being accused of several cyber crimes, one of them linked to how he came to possess these photographs. His arrest had been pending for quite some time even before this came up. He’d taken refuge in Germany.”

“Asli,” Saul bent over, one hand on the pictures. “I have no idea who this young man is. And I cannot frankly see how he might have sought to contact my Chief of Station,” He lowered his voice, maintaining his pitch as steady as he could manage. “…Or either what his interest in doing so might be.”

“He is a criminal who has broken the Turkish law. His own Country’s law.”

“Then I don’t see why I’m being bothered.”

“Do you realize the gravity of your words, Saul?” Asli stood up, arms crossed. “You say you’re unaware of both your Chief’s whereabouts and her contacts. Such negligence, in your position, could greatly compromise you.”

“Carrie Mathison is a trustworthy individual who has sacrificed much of her personal life for helping the Agency and her Country.”

“So you’re not willing to give her up.”

“I couldn’t, even if I wanted. I have no idea who she’s met lately because I trust her. I don’t have my Station Chiefs followed and their phones tapped.” Saul hesitated. “You might wanna learn a bit from that, Asli. It would make Turkey a better place.”

“My Country has a lot to deal with, Saul.” She replied. “The Islamic State pushing at our borders, terrorism within the boundaries of our cities, immigrant children washing up dead on our shores.”

“And you really think the _appearance_ of democracy will help solving those problems? You need justice and human rights to be in the European Union. And you’ll never qualify for that if you don’t stop arresting your youth.”

“We arrested him because he’s kept information from his own Country.”

“A bunch of photographs whose meaning he probably ignores.”

“This is _my_ problem, Saul.” Asli took a deep breath, starting to show some signs of exhaustion. “Not yours. So has this person met Carrie Mathison _or not_?”

* * *

 

**The day after**

“Carrie.” He whispered, slowly. A tear escaped the corner of his eye and rolled down his cheekbone towards his left ear where it just faded away, leaving a sheer trail on his pale, thin skin.

“Quinn.” She lay beside him, all dressed while he was in his usual white hospital gown. “ _Quinn_.” She repeated, running her right hand on his chest, savoring the tension in his muscles reacting to her touch. “You’re back.” She buried her face into his slow embrace, inhaling anxiously his clean smell as she wept, striving to control her breath, completely taken in by her own emotions.

“You’re here Carrie.” He said, without opening his eyes. “You’re here.”

“Yes. I’m here. I’ll never leave you again.” She caught some breath, and glanced up at him. But when her stare met his, his clear sapphire irises had disappeared. His skin darkened and the consistence of his body started dissolving beneath her fingers; she tried to clench his fingers in hers and found herself holding a handful of gray, boiling-hot dust burning her palm.

“Quinn!” Her voice echoed in the empty circular room of her usual dream, always white and sunlit, now getting colder and colder around her as Quinn’s liquefying body got hotter. “Quinn I’m sorry!” She jumped back, pulling away from his horrifying appearance. “I couldn’t save you… I couldn’t… I _can’t!”_

“I loved you. Yours, for always now.” She heard his voice one last time before finding herself lying on her knees and hands on the floor where Quinn’s bed had been. Flames started engulfing the walls, and the floor began shaking violently beneath her body as she frantically scrambled to rise and walk away through a door she could not locate. As fire devoured the room, Carrie felt her hands and face wet: gasping at the sight of her own blood oozing through the pores of her skin, she started screaming as she had never heard herself scream before.

-

“Carrie.” A male voice called her from what seemed a thousand miles away. “Carrie, you’re okay. Wake up. It’s only a nightmare.”

She opened her eyes to the warm lights of her room in Istanbul, the softness of her duvet, the comfort of her own home. There was no fire, no Quinn. No blood. No missing doors and oozing wounds. She got up and sat there, mind-frozen, trying to return to reality.

“Carrie, you’re fine. You’re safe now.” He whispered.

She turned aside.

“Jonas?!”

He stood up, hands on his hips. “Otto sent me.”

“ _Otto_.”

“Yeah.”

“For…” She pulled her hair back with a pin from her bedside table and got off bed. They now stood in front of each other on the opposite sides of the large mattress. “For what? I don’t understand.”

“To help Saul.”

“Why?” She shook her head in surprise. “What happened to Saul? I just saw him a few days ago, is he okay?”

Jonas’s grasp on her wrist was firm but gentle when he walked up to her. “Carrie, I think you need to sit.”

She saw it in his eyes. Those eyes she knew so well, that sincere concern in his smile. He wanted to protect her, another person thinking she should be _saved_. She knew well where that might lead.

“I don’t need anything.” She hissed, pulling away from his hold. “You fucking tell me what happened to Saul.”

“He’s being held by the Turkish National Security Organization.” He declared, calmly.

“What?” Carrie shook her head in disbelief. “Since when? Why would they do that?”

Jonas’s stare was the saddest she’d seen since their last conversation about their relationship. It was a mixture of realization and resignation of the worst kind, the hopeless one.

“I think you know why, Carrie.” He whispered.

She did not reply.

“I’m his lawyer.”

“Oh. I see.”

“He called me here through Otto.”

“Okay.” She looked away. “Jonas… I… What do you want from me, really?”

“Your help, Carrie.”

“That I’m not sure I can give you.” Her voice broke. “ _Things are happening, Jonas._ ”

“What things?”

“Things.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Things that are beyond me, and Saul, and you.”

“They’re accusing him of keeping vital information from them.”

“They should have taken _me_ , not him.”

“They tried. That’s why you should stay in here until this situation is fixed. They think you’re away.”

“Jonas…” She stared up at him, her eyes prickling from the tears pushing violently to burst out. “I think I know what they want. But we can’t give it to them. I was asked… to keep it from them.”

“What, Carrie? What did they tell you?” He asked.

“I don’t know how I got back here.” She realized, without answering Jonas’s question. “I woke up here, but... _I wasn’t here before._ ” She sighed. “They took me away.”

“I know.” Jonas declared. “I collected you from them a few hours ago. You were asleep from the medicine.”

“You?” She spread her arms.

Jonas sat down in Carrie’s armchair. “They contacted me. They wanted me to pick you up where they’d release you. You were asleep, I brought you home.”

“You shouldn’t have agreed to that.” She replied quickly. “What if anybody saw you? That could compromise your role as Saul’s attorney.”

“No. You shut up and listen.” His tone got drier. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I won’t be blamed for being your friend now that god only knows how many enemies you have.” He stared up at her from where he sat. “You don’t get to pick, Carrie. You got me, and I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, Jonas.” She admitted. “I’m just… shaken, I guess. These people… They know their game.”

“So you know who abducted you, I gather.”

She looked at him, undecided whether to open up or keep everything to herself.

“Hezbollah got me.” She whispered. “Al-Amin, my contact from Berlin, got me. I’ve been… _entrusted_ with information.”

“Great. We’re going somewhere.” Jonas stood up. “Asli Asani is trying to make it seem like the two of them actually _agreed_ to have a chat, but she can’t hold Saul like that. If she doesn’t handle it the right way, this thing is gonna blow up in her face.” He paused. “And I will be the one igniting the fuse.”

“What a fucking mess.”

“Asani knew it’d take some time to organize the defense chain.” Jonas reckoned. “She is probably trying to take advantage of every single second spent with Saul.”

“I don’t blame her.” Carrie whispered. “Considering what’s going on.”

Jonas stood. “ _What_ exactly is going on, Carrie?” He asked. “I need to know as much as I can to negotiate Saul’s release.”

“Well, didn’t he tell you? You’re his lawyer, for god’s sake.” She shook her head in resignation. “ _Fucking Saul_.”

“He clearly doesn’t want to compromise you.”

“I know. It’s just…” Carrie hesitated. “He’d have to admit he got the intel from me, I know that.”

“I need to know what I’m dealing with.” Jonas stood too, and approached Carrie at the large window facing the Turkish night, the flickering city lights in the misty atmosphere of summer. “Carrie, you can trust me. You’ve always known you could.”

She turned back to face him, and had to fight the dizziness their proximity gave her. He was the living memory of the happiest she had known herself to have been, and at the same time the living delusion of a life she had failed to thrive into. Jonas’s soft, warm fingers on her cheek felt like fire eating at her insides.

“I missed you so much.” She whispered.

“Me too.”

“But we shouldn’t…” Carrie pulled back slightly and their bodies separated enough for the illusion of that moment to fade into nothing. “It’s over, Jonas. We were living a lie.”

“I don’t think it was ever a lie, Carrie.” He said, calmly, and still smiling at her. “You tried to find some peace.”

“You wouldn’t have tolerated the real me.”

“No. No, you’re right. I can’t live like that.” He admitted. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t… aspire to something different.”

“I don’t know, Jonas.” Her voice broke. “I thrive in the fucking darkness.” She looked away.

“That’s not true.” He caressed her arm. “You know evil. Otherwise you couldn’t be fighting it. Doesn’t mean you’re _it_. Doesn’t mean your happiness is a lie.”

“I’d just like for it to be back as it was.” She admitted, her voice thinner than the still summer air in Istanbul.

“That’s not true. You’re lying even to yourself.” Jonas smiled as he spoke, and she felt all her resentment wearing off to just disappear.

“I was happy with you. We were happy.” She whispered, more to admit that to herself than to make a remark to him.

“We were.”

“Jonas…” She pulled back slightly, distancing her body from his, trying to extinguish the desire for something she had known so well, something safe, and comfortable, something a thousand miles far from the danger and the excitation of her attraction to Quinn. She wanted him so deeply and so inexorably at that very moment, that she was ready to fade into him with the whole load of her preoccupations and her fears, guilt, despair. Nonetheless, she pulled away from it, restraining her own desire in such a way that burnt her very flesh to the bone: it would be unfair to just everybody to give in to that kind of desire which, she understood, was the work of her pain and need to feel protected, to renounce her own reality, eventually just deluding herself into thinking she might give that kind of life another chance. So, Carrie pulled back full-force: a few inches of brutality against her soul’s desires. Jonas did not insist and the tension of their near kiss just faded into thin air.

“I can’t tell you anything.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

“Why Carrie?” He spread his arms. “I’ve no idea how much leverage I have with these people… I may be able to work out a deal based on that.”

“You need to make Saul talk. That’ll be sufficient, he’s not up to date anyway, I don’t want to put him in any unnecessary danger.”

“Saul hates me. He hates what I represent, the Foundation and all it stands for.” Jonas replied.

“You’re his person here. There’s a reason why, Jonas. He needs to trust you.”

“I flew in because Otto asked me, not Saul. He only accepted because I suspect he’s trying to keep the Agency out of this.”

“The Agency doesn’t know he’s being held?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, god.” Carrie pulled her hair back with her hands and just stood there. “And the Turkish have no interest in letting Langley know, for the time being.”

“Exactly.” Jonas nodded. “They know Saul can expose them afterwards, but for now they just care about making him talk. They want their fucking intel.”

“…I can’t take the risk, Jonas.” She interrupted him. “I can’t tell you anything. It’d be too much to ask you to keep your mouth shut about it _afterwards_.”

“Carrie.” Jonas’s sad glance hit her by surprise. She would have expected anger, or at least some more conviction from him to the idea of extorting information from her. Instead, he seemed just exhausted and quite resigned. “Carrie.” He repeated. “Do you really think you’re always alone in things?”

“For the most part.”

“I won’t force you to tell me anything.”

“I wouldn’t talk. It’s for the best. For Saul, and you.”

“Okay.” He took her hand in his. “I’ll get him out anyway, they have no right to hold him. I’ll find a way if he can hold on a bit longer.”

“I know you will.” She smiled. “Jonas, I… I know you want to help me. It’s just…”

“Complicated?”

“Yeah. Complicated. I need to be alone in this, for everyone’s sake.” Carrie looked away. “You’ve got no fucking clue the mess we’re all gonna be in.”

“It’s unfair, Carrie. You’re being unfair to yourself.” He whispered, holding her wrist.

“I didn’t sign for fairness when I took this job.” She reckoned. “Neither me, nor Saul. And certainly not…” She hesitated. “ _None of us did_.”

“I saw him last week.” He declared.

“…”

“He’s still alive, Carrie. It must mean something that he didn’t die that day.”

“You hated him the minute you saw him, no need for pity now.”

“I didn’t hate him. I would’ve had to hate you as well. You two…” He lowered his stare, his voice down to a whisper. “You two are the same. Maybe he’s really the one, Carrie.” He added. He did not hate Peter Quinn. How could he, since he had known him for just a few days, which the man had spent mostly unconscious? Nonetheless, he certainly dreaded the darkness engulfing everything bright and pure and serene he had known in Carrie, from the moment she had met that man onwards. He exhaled. “Maybe he was gonna be the one, Carrie, because in truth, I think he got you. In a way that I never fucking did.”

“That’s not true.” Carrie bit her lower lip, her stare piercing Jonas right through. “You did get me. You got the best of me. For a long time.”

“But not the whole of you. He did though, Carrie.” Jonas’s broken voice echoed in the silence between them and the quiet outside. “You owe him that while he’s still here. You’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t care.”

“I do care.”

“You just went back to your old life.”

“Well what could I do?” She yelled suddenly, in a liberating outlet of doubt and despair. “What could I fucking do, Jonas? I need this. It’s what I know. While he’s… One way or another, it wouldn’t make a goddamn difference to him, you know. _Not a fucking difference_.”

“You just try and be real here. Acting as if he wasn’t there is not gonna help eventually.”

“He’d pull his own plug if he saw himself that way.” She whispered. “And I know he’s there only because he was my fucking bodyguard all along those months.”

“Don’t say that.” Jonas exhaled.

“It’d be _fair_ for him to be dead. You hated him anyway, no need to play fair.”

“We can both agree my own feelings are not the point here.” Jonas declared. “And you wouldn’t bear it if he died. You’d blame it on yourself.”

“You’d be surprised the things I can live with.” She released a hollow laugh.


	8. The Wait

_“Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.”_

Genesis 6:17 

* * *

  **June 25, 2016  
** **Turkey-Iran border**

Carrie had crossed into Iran in the dead of night, after a nineteen-hour bus ride across the valleys and mountaintops of Turkey under a different name, wearing a linen headscarf and a heavy-duty khaki jacket over a light, long-sleeved cotton shirt covering the entire length of her thighs down to her calves, leaving out only the bottom of her loose-fitting trousers. She had found it strange and slightly unsettling to see her own reflection in the mirror of her apartment in Istanbul, dressed once again in an outfit which, she reckoned, would always remind her of her previous time in Iran, one so far away in time and feelings, that it seemed like ages had passed. She could still feel the delicate roundedness of her pregnant belly underneath the layers of cloth, and it reminded her of the anxiety and fear, the powerlessness she had been forced to endure back then, the despair of letting the father of her child go when no one, neither her nor anyone above her, could do anything to lift his burden from him. She could easily picture the expression of Brody’s willpower in his eyes, his determination in carrying out his duty to a Country he had loved, defended and then rejected with all his might, his longing for death turning into hope, and then the resignation of his final hours. Carrie felt the ambiguity of it all, and yet Brody’s strength was still palpable to her, as she faced the effects of the perfectly, and tragically orchestrated plan she, Saul, and Quinn had designed for him.

She had gotten off the bus in Dogubayazit, a small town at the extreme Eastern border of Turkey facing mount Ararat, at dusk. The darkest night had accompanied her crossing, guided by men she did not know but had been told to trust through an empty, stony land filled with crevices and slopes. No one had disturbed their trek, and they had seamlessly surpassed the barbed wire protected by the dark as well as, she reckoned, some sort of agreement between two of the three parties: with the Turkish being more interested in guarding the border with Syria to prevent migrants from getting in illegally, the Iranians frequently received Hezbollah’s money for the occasional _laissez-passer_. By six o’clock, the rising sun cast bright pink and orange reflections on the thick cloud cap covering the main peak of the mountain and flying West swiftly, as if nature was celebrating a fire rite to praise the upcoming summer morning with dancing flames. Carrie pulled the scarf up to her chin as she walked towards Ararat, Noah’s legendary landing site after the Flood had receded. Two hours later, it was full morning. She was picked up and driven to Maku, a border town a few miles into Iran.

________

 

**Berlin**

“Come on Peter, you’re doing great.” The doctor nodded slowly, articulating his words accurately. “Come on, son,” He repeated. “Like so. You’re close.”

“Reach out, Peter.” Nurse Schiller added. “Catch my hand.”

_I’m fucking trying._

“This is some sort of physical therapy, yes?” Astrid asked politely. She was standing in the doorframe, undecided whether to stay or go. She felt like she was intruding into something private that Quinn would have never wanted her to witness, although she was wondering whether or not she was overthinking the whole situation. She took a shy step in.

“Peter.” She whispered.

Dressed in a pale gray sports suit, he lay on a tilt table in a quasi-standing position, strapped to it by his chest and thighs. His lower limbs and both arms were relatively free to move, as the doctor and nurse sat beside him: she was holding out her right hand from a distance where he obviously needed to voluntarily stretch his left arm in order to grasp her fingers, while the doctor was maneuvering the inclination of the tilt bed, changing it slightly and constantly towards a full standing position.

“Peter. Hi.” Astrid repeated. “It’s Astrid.”

His gaze wandered aimlessly for a few seconds of hesitation, and then seemed to focus on her, even though all she got from that was the feeling of being totally invisible to him, as if he was looking at something directly behind her physical body.

“I’m here to see you.”

_Sorry I’m not in my best shape, babe._

Astrid looked at the doctor.

“Can he recognize people?” She asked.

“We think so.” He replied, quietly. “Isn’t that so, Peter?”

_You don’t know a damn._

“Look at your friend, she’s here for you. Aren’t you happy?” Nurse Schiller stroked Quinn’s arm. “It’s a big day for you.” She added, with a sincere smile.

He did not move. The weight of Astrid’s discomfort got heavier as she stood in the center of that strange room where something good had seemingly happened that she could not decipher. In fact all she was seeing was a severely damaged young man strapped to a tilt bed, whose mental integrity was an open question since all he could do was stare at her in-between a muscle spasm contracting his neck and the eye tremors decentering his gaze.

“Peter.” She repeated, trying to keep her tone steady, hardly restraining a sigh. “It’s me, Astrid.”

The doctor stood up and walked to her.

“Why don’t we get some air while nurse Schiller transfers Peter back to bed?” He pushed Astrid’s forearm gently. “His wake cycle should last another hour at least. He usually falls asleep after physical therapy. We need to clean his airways and change the feeding tube before he goes.”

“Sure.”

The nurse tilted the table back to the horizontal position and wheeled the bulky hospital bed closer to it. As the patient lay motionless, silent and seemingly unaware of the commotion around him despite his wide open stare, she began working around the straps on his legs and chest. A hammock already lying underneath his body was lifted through a lever and operated in order to align it with the bed, then lowered again, seamlessly moving him from the exercise table onto the clean sheets, where nurse Schiller adjusted his limbs and head so that he could lie supine, with his muscles fully extended and relaxed. She unbuttoned his sweater, exposing the feeding tube plug.

Astrid walked out with the doctor. As soon as the glass door closed on the Neurological Rehabilitation Unit, she was able to catch some breath, choking the residual tears back.

"I am glad someone came to see him." The doctor turned to her when they reached the large window facing the river, as the city faded in the distance through a foggy curtain. They stood in silence for a few seconds.

"Miss Mathison gave precise instructions as to whom should be given information," The doctor began. "The sixth month update... it's usually an important moment, you know. Most of these patients reach a turning point."

"She told me I would probably be the one receiving the update."

"You are next in line in the decision chain. Miss Mathison made it clear to report to you in case she missed her sixth-month appointment."

"I know."

"So, Astrid. Here we are." The doctor sat down on a bench. "Sit with me."

_______

 

**Maku, Iran**

"So you know him." Carrie adjusted her headscarf without losing eye contact with the man sitting on the low sofa in front of her.

"I do." Hamvar declared. He was tall and wide-shouldered, with a dark, dense beard and a pince-nez with a metallic frame. Overall, his appearance was gentle as he studied Carrie's expression with interest, pouring tea for her in a decorated ceramic cup.

"And you know what is going on between him and Mordechai Gorion." She added.

"I do."

"You understand the difficulty of my position here, professor.” Carrie declared. “I crossed the border illegally, guided by people with allegiances that my Country would never endorse, to come see you as I was invited to.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “I appreciate your kind hospitality and your desire to talk to me but I’m putting myself in danger and my job on the line.” She raised her brow. “I need to know that I can trust you.”

"Miss Mathison," He began.

_He knows my real name._

"I know things. Things that I would like to share." He sat back, relaxed. "You should trust me because I have no interest in luring an American intelligence officer into my home, if I’m not doing a favor to us all here. I'm not trying to harm you. In fact, I am endangering my family, and myself too. People like you don’t do business with people like me."

“Are we doing business then?” She asked.

“No. I’m working _pro bono_.” He joked.

“I see.”

“I’m poor, miss Mathison, but not desperate. And I think we should be focusing on the greater good here.”

A quick glance around that large though quite empty room was enough for Carrie to know he was probably telling the truth: Hamvar was poor, Iranian and he was involved in the once infamous Nuclear Program that she, Quinn and Saul had worked so hard to turn into something harmless. Three young children, two boys and one girl, were playing in the small, square garden at the center of the house. At its four sides, glass windows and low, narrow doors opened on the inner rooms. The garden was full of blooming lilacs and tinted in bright pink by bougainvillea freely falling from the upper balconies, while a tall sycamore tree reached out its branches to the clean, blue sky of Maku. From the inside, Carrie could see the children laugh as they played with the water spurts of a low hexagonal fountain framed in the center of the tiled ceramic floor. The inside of the house, though, was shady and slightly cold as the sun was blocked out and directed entirely to the garden, as the clever middle-Eastern style prescribed for dwellings. Not many possessions populated the room where she and Hamvar were having tea. In fact, Carrie suspected, not many possessions populated the house, generally. A low sofa and table where sweets had been placed on a silver tray and a large bookshelf loaded with volumes filled the space, and nothing else. Hamvar smiled to her.

“I’m poor, miss Mathison, and I’m a Physicist, a scholar.” He took a sip of tea. “My wife died of cancer. I live a frugal life. My children are my one and only priority. Do you have children, miss Mathison?”

“A little girl.”

“Then you’ll know what I mean when I say we should give a better world to them than we got.”

“I do, professor. I certainly do.” Carrie smiled. “And I feel the same.”

“Good.”

“But you’ll agree with me that your contacts with Hezbollah indeed put you in a strange position to be saying so.” She added.

“Why, miss Mathison?” Hamvar smiled gently. “Because they take the Palestinian cause seriously? Because they fight for the rights of the oppressed? Is their friendship an embarrassment to my academic and social status? My Government knows about my relationships and endorses them.”

“We both know Hezbollah’s position is controversial, as well as your Government’s.” She insisted.

“But you listened to my friends anyway.” He replied. “And you came.”

“I was told it was important.”

“Exactly. It is.” He placed his cup back onto the low tea table and sat with his hands entwined in his lap. For a few seconds, he scrutinized Carrie with curiosity. “I think you’re a good person, miss Mathison. An intelligent, sensitive woman.”

“Well, thank you.” She laughed, caught by surprise. “Is that anyhow relevant?”

“Yes.” He took a breath. “I believe it’s paramount to entrust the right person with this piece of information,” He began. “And we were lucky that you, of all people, came to know what you know by now. Eli Goldberg trusts you.”

“Eli?” She asked, caught by surprise by the mention of his name by a man close with Hezbollah. “Eli Goldberg would never…”

“We have many friends, miss Mathison. Some of them, the most unlikely people.”

“Fine. So you know Eli.”

“I do. And I know you through him.”

“Oh, god.” She exhaled. “I was being watched the whole time there.”

“For the right reasons.”

“That would be…?”

“Those backpacks that were purchased by Mordechai Gorion through the help of an old Ukrainian colleague of mine.”

“So the man’s not Russian.” She noted.

“No, he’s not. Although, he was involved in their nuclear program as a Physicist himself.” He paused. “We worked together before Iran resumed the liaison with the United States, and the Russian government recalled them all. He was helping us improving the ratio of reutilized fuel over dirty spent waste. Then it all got to a halt when the American talks began.”

“Is he still working for the Russian nuclear program?”

“No. Since civil war in Ukraine broke out last year, he disappeared, probably to fight. He became strongly anti-Russian.” Hamvar paused. “He became known to the Mossad when they conducted an operation to eliminate some of us working at the plants, a few years back. Israel took out a few friends of mine, scholars of high value, to damage our nuclear program.”

A few seconds of silence followed as Carrie visualized the physical structure of information growing before her very eyes, like an intricate web of interconnected nodes pulsating in response to each other’s pulses. She felt lightheaded for a moment.

“Oh god. I see it.” She whispered.

“ _God_ sees us all already, miss Mathison. And He must be _revolted_ by us all, at this moment.”

“ _Oh,_ _god_.” She repeated.

**______**

 

**Berlin**

“What does this mean, doctor?” Astrid choked the handkerchief in her pocket and the affliction in her stomach. “Is he… is he going to ever wake up?”

“We still don’t know.” The doctor smiled. “But he has these moments, you see.”

“Like earlier?”

“Yes. Like earlier.” He joined his hands. “He seems to be there, and he probably is, Astrid. For a moment.”

“So is he waking up?” She asked, feeling stupid for the mere idea of that question. Of course that was what it meant: she had seen him vaguely gaze at her, like he wanted to be there but was distracted by something only he could see. She felt ashamed of her desire to be anywhere but there at that moment, forced to sustain Quinn’s strange, unfocused stare and pretend to respond somehow, by words he did not understand or could not answer to.

“Is he still minimally conscious?” She continued. “Like before?”

“These are only labels.” The doctor replied. “He was not for long in a vegetative coma after the post-operative period. He came out of that pretty early in fact.” He surfed through Quinn’s file. “He was already minimally conscious a few days after the hemorrhage.”

“So why is he still… like that?” Astrid asked shyly. “I mean… many months have passed, yes? And he hasn’t evolved from there.”

“Six months.” The doctor confirmed. “Few lucky patients recuperate in less, many more just never do. Peter… he’s complicated.”

“He’s always been like that.” She joked fondly. “You know… not the easiest guy.” She smiled.

The doctor nodded.

“We know.” He said. “But there’s more. We’re trying to stimulate him very heavily. You saw the tilt bed. That was today. Tomorrow, we will sit him up for five minutes or so, to train his blood flow to sustain the upright position. We talk to him, every day. We put music and the t.v. on for a few minutes.”

“I see.”

“What we do, we do it for his body… but also for his mind.” The doctor continued. “He’s bedridden, and fed through a tube, cleaned, moved and worked on by people he doesn’t know. Nurse Schiller is marvelous but she’s nobody to him, unfortunately.” He shook his head. “Moreover, there’s the horrible ordeal he went through before landing here. And there’s no way for us to know how he feels about that.” He added. “He may be blocked somehow… You know… by his mind. Shut down to forget.”

“Post traumatic stress?” She asked. “Do you think he can feel something like that?”

“Of course we’re just speculating here.” The doctor replied. “But truly, how do we exclude it? There’s no definitive way to assess the feelings and thoughts of patients like him. But they’re not empty boxes.” He stood up and Astrid followed suit. They headed back to the Unit.

“I think all these factors, the mental difficulties as well as the physical ones, are affecting his recovery.” He declared. “He’s lonely, and traumatized. He seems to hold no interest in what we do of him. He would probably interact more if...”

“Oh,” Astrid looked away, this time unable to restrain the tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. “Oh, god.” She whispered, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. She stared up at the doctor. “Do you think he’s… that… he wants it to be over?”

“I can only guess.” He admitted, sadly. “I wish I was wrong, but I think I’m right. Unconsciously, of course, since he’s not _awake_ in that sense… But he’s tired of everything.”

“You can’t possibly…” She could not finish the sentence, overwhelmed by the enormity of her thought.

“No, Astrid, we can’t and we won’t.” He declared. “I’m here to heal people, or to accompany the dying with dignity. Not to end lives that aren’t ending.” He pierced her right through with his stare. “Peter went through so much. The brutality of it would fully justify a post-traumatic stress disorder,” He noted. They stood in front of the main entrance to Quinn’s unit.

“And the effects of the sarin poisoning as well as the brain hemorrhage that followed, are undoubted: he’s been left incapacitated.” The doctor reprised. “But he’s not dying. He’d be recovering faster and he’d maybe reach a more acceptable quality of life if...”

“…Like what? How acceptable?” She interrupted him. “A wheelchair…? Speaking a little..? Being fed normally, maybe?”

“Maybe. Maybe some of those things, or just one.” He replied. “Maybe he’ll just learn to reach out his hand to us, or direct his stare where instructed. Maybe we can get him to swallow again, for easier feeding. But we need _him_ to be there with us.”

_Maybe I’m just being overly cautious and he’ll walk out of here in a year on his own feet._

“He may be on the verge of a change.” He added. “That’s the point of our sixth-month update, I believe. His brain metabolism is improving; he’s getting better on a physiological standpoint. He’s young, and there’s a potential for brain plasticity and rewiring beyond the physical damage that he’s suffered.”

“Your examples of _a change_ don’t seem like much.” Astrid commented miserably.

“For him, at this point, it’d be a lot to just look at us meaningfully and for long enough.” The doctor admitted. “He’s not collaborating. I see it in his eyes. He’s just had enough of us all.”

“That’s…” She exhaled. “That’s the worst thing you could tell me today. That he wants to die.”

“No, it’s not.” He insisted. “I’m saying I can foresee him getting better _if he wants to_.” He pointed at the Neurological Rehabilitation entrance. “I won’t let him die from lack of interest. I just won’t. When you and miss Mathison learned that he was alive… you need to grab that feeling from your memories. And transfer it to him.”

“He’s always been quite permeable to feelings.”

“Now he won’t be. If we can find a way in… he’s vulnerable. He’s sick. His brain is healing itself silently as we speak. His mind, though, is not.” The doctor declared. “I cannot predict how far up the coma scale he’s gonna climb, but he has what he needs here: stimulation, improving brain scans… What’s lacking is his own will to live.”

“Do you think he’d be happy to wake up like this, to live like you said, conscious but bedridden? Unable to speak, feed and clean himself? He will never accept that.”

“Define happy.” He replied. “Can you walk? Feed and clean yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Precisely.”

* * *

 

**Four days later**

**Istanbul**

“This is not fucking happening.” Saul whispered. He leaned against the windowsill of his office in Istanbul, still shaken by his night trip from Ankara in the back of a diplomatic car, with a silent, slightly scorned Jonas at his side. It was early in the morning, already hotter than anywhere outside the Middle East. He knew well how merciless the sun would become by noon as he gazed into the distance, where the cityscape looked like it was melting away in the glowing heat. A copy of Haaretz lay on his desk.

“Is _she_ involved in this mess?” Dar Adal asked. Saul turned to him and could not help but understand his acrimony against Carrie, even though it was unjustified from them both at that point.

“She knew Eli Goldberg.” Saul admitted. “And I knew him too, for that matter.”

“I’m not asking about your acquaintances. I’m asking whether Carrie is behind this, has somehow provoked this, or failed to prevent this.” Dar turned from the monitor for few seconds and reappeared into the frame holding his own copy of Haaretz, so that Saul could see the main titles.

“Put that thing away Dar. I’m sick of it already.”

“Why would I ever trust Carrie?” The newspaper exited the frame and got out of sight. Dar reappeared. “Seriously, Saul. How can she not be involved?”

“You trust me, and I’m telling you, she didn’t have a clue this would happen.” Saul took a sip from his cup of tea. “She thought Eli Goldberg could be worked.”

“Fine. He obviously couldn’t. Something like this would be too much even for her.” Dar admitted. “And I know she’s a good officer. She’s just the fucking devil, so unpredictable. It takes patience to let her do her job.”

“She does it well.”

“Indeed, I must admit I’ve changed my mind about her, you know.”

“I’m glad you did, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked her to come back after Berlin. It’d have been dishonest of me.”

“Yeah, as if you’ve never done whatever the hell you wanted with her.” Dar raised his brow. “Let’s be real here.”

“You know I care about her.”

“As you say. Peter liked her a lot and I trusted his judgment too.”

“I know.”

“So what do we do about Eli Goldberg?” Dar asked.

“We wait. And we keep our mouths shut until something happens.”

“Like what?” Dar shook his head. “Are you trying to let this shit blow up before our very eyes?”

“No.” Saul declared. “I’m waiting to see who is willing to ignite the fuse. Whoever it is, I’ll be on them as soon as they come out.”

Dar sat back. “If we stay behind, and the Russians make the move…”

“They won’t.” Saul’s gaze did not betray the slightest uncertainty. “They’ll pretend to. But they won’t.”

“God forbid you’re wrong, my friend.”

“Yeah. God forbid.”

Saul ended the call and the room fell back into a silence so deep he could hear his own terrified thoughts echoing in the depths of his mind.

“Carrie.” He called.

She came out of the adjoining office and approached him.

“Glad to know the man trusts me at this point.” She reckoned sarcastically. “Better late than ever. Although I could do without the resentment.”

“You know how he is.”

“Yeah, Saul. And I know how _you_ are. It’s not like I’m fine with you ignoring my warnings.” She retorted. “No matter how hard you defend my loyalty to the Agency in front of Dar Adal. You gotta fucking believe what I say, too. For real.”

“I do believe you, Carrie.” He exhaled and plopped on the sofa, rubbing his temples. “I’d just like for this thing to proceed at its own pace, not yours. For the safety of everyone.”

“I’m not forcing the events here. Eli did.” She declared. “And I’ve no idea why.” She added, sadly.

“He obviously had this planned. He was fed up with everyone and everything. He didn’t care, Carrie.”

“Not sure about that, Saul.” Carrie shook her head, gazing over Saul’s shoulder as if something of the utmost significance was happening there. “The only thing I’m sure about is that I believed we could work behind the scenes and now the whole fucking world knows it.” She bit her lower lip. “Saul, if I’m right about the Russians, they will be _so very angry._ They’re probably quite pissed, already.” She admitted. “It’s not like Eli did a favor to their public image.”

“I don’t even wanna contemplate an alternative.” Saul whispered. “But if you’re wrong, and they are involved…”

“I’m not wrong.” Carrie insisted. “I’m _not._ They’re not involved. Eli couldn’t know that, and he just emptied his cartridge blindly. I was with Hamvar in Iran, and I never managed to let him know about the Ukrainian physicist and the backpacks, and all that shit. He still thought it was the Russians, so he exposed them.”

“How can you be so sure? You crossed the fucking border illegally, Carrie. You were gone for three days, in the company of terrorists. You received information from a source that was never verified.” Saul retorted.

“It makes sense, Saul. The Mossad is behind this, they want to end the war with Iran quickly without Israel losing their public image. They’d never drop a nuclear fucking bomb on Tehran _publicly._ ”

“These are heavy allegations to make against a sovereign state, Carrie.”

“Oh.” She raised her voice. “So it’s okay to call shit on the Russians but not on Israel.”

“It’s not that.” He whispered.

“Goddammit Saul. Don’t you see it?” Carrie pulled her hair back as she paced the room without even looking at him. “If Hamvar’s former colleague disappeared to fight in the Ukraine civil war, he can’t possibly be working for the Russians.”

“Why?”

“It was a quick way to get what Tzedek wanted. The black fucking market of weapons… It’s more effective than Russia stepping into the war to help their new friend Israel. That would be too fucking much not to blow up three quarters of the diplomatic relations in the world.”

“I don’t know, Carrie… How do you think Mag Tzedek will take it if I bring up the matter to her?”

“Not my problem. It’s your shit to deal with, Saul. You gotta stop this, and fast.”

That said, Carrie stormed out of the room.

* * *

_Carrie,_

_You’re probably wondering what got into me, and thinking I was trying to take you and the whole fucking world down with me at this point. But I’m not. What we’ve seen together in Tel Aviv, the things we’ve learned, we saw and learned together. You were never a step behind me: I was never trying to lure you into this shit we’ve gotten ourselves into, I simply wouldn’t do that to you, ever. I respect you, Carrie, and I’ve told you many times during your stay how sick and exhausted I am with the life I live. So no, you were never a pawn: I trusted that you would do better than I could ever do with the intel we got, the events we’ve witnessed: my hands are tied, Margalit Tzedek knows about every breath I take. But you can still make the difference. I’ve taken the liberty of pushing the events a little with my sweet little piece on Haaretz this morning, and the reason why is simple: it just cannot wait any longer. My friend Hamvar is a good fellow, a very cultivated person, and a brave man: he wanted to talk to me initially, but I made it so he could see you instead, and you must believe his every word, whatever he told you, which I don’t know but I don’t think it matters at this point for me. My nice story from this morning’s Haaretz will hopefully move things forward a little, so that you and Saul can finally step in and start doing what you do best._

_Good luck._

_Eli_

* * *

Eli’s body was never found, and by the time it was clear he was gone forever, all those who were looking for him had bigger issues in their hands, so the searches came to a halt. Nobody ever found out that he had drowned himself in the Jordan River, a few miles off the Fish Pool, while Carrie was having tea with Hamvar in Maku, Saul was being held by Asli Asani from the Turkish secret services, and Quinn lay in a hospital bed waiting to die. Eli’s article had come out on Haaretz the next morning, and no more than an hour had passed between the first copy being purchased by a commuter at a corner shop in Jerusalem, Saul being released by the Turkish, and Margalit Tzedek calling an emergency meeting with the Ministries of Defense, Strategic and Foreign Affairs at the Mossad headquarters.

A few hours later, the Russian president made a public statement, televised all around the Federation, denying any involvement of the government in the alleged entrance of five ‘nuclear backpacks’ from the Soviet era into Israel, through an individual working for Rosatom, the State Atomic Energy Corporation administering civil and military nuclear power in Russia.

Later that week, the United States Ambassador in Moscow was recalled, and all flights in and out of Russia for the USA were cancelled. The Israeli delegate expressed gratitude for the show of respect and the strengthening of the diplomatic relations between the USA and Israel that these actions brought about when invited to speak at the seat of the United Nations, while the Russian delegate left the assembly in protest against the anti-Russian measures and the disbelief everybody showed to the public statements released by his President.

Carrie sat in her room in Istanbul watching the news the day the Ultimatum was declared. A text from Saul had her phone vibrate in her pocket the minute the President of the United States left the podium.

_Do you still believe it’s not the Russians? Answer honestly._

She exhaled deeply as she closed her eyes for a moment before replying.

_I still think it’s not the Russians._

_  
_


	9. Dies Irae

Dies irae, dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos.

Zephaniah, 1:15-16

* * *

 

 **Berlin** ,  
 **July 13 th, 2016**

Carrie got off Otto During’s private jet as the sun rose upon the sleepy city. Shivering, she pulled the zip lock of her light jacket up to her chin. The breeze of dawn in Germany was something she remembered pretty intensely and tenderly as she pictured in her memories the past scenes of her life in Berlin, Jonas making coffee for her, the smell of the toasted grains and the warmth of Franny’s body when she would climb up to her bed just so they could cocoon their way into the day. Otto and Astrid were expecting her on the runway, reasonably more accustomed than she was to the unkind German summer.

“Carrie!”

Before even realizing it, she ended up sucked into Astrid’s embrace, chin planted into her friend’s shoulder blade, gripping the back of her coat tightly with one hand, the other balancing her large travel bag. She had to restrain a sigh and realized Astrid was controlling herself too. Then Otto walked up to them.

“Carrie. Welcome back.” He said, calmly.

“Thank you, Otto. Thank you for getting me here.” Carrie hugged him too, though their contact was quick and slightly colder. He seemed to reckon that as well, and his gaze saddened. Carrie had not talked to him in months and she had suspected he was resentful of her refusing his offer to become a partner in the Foundation. Now though, just looking at his disappointment in their unemotional encounter, she realized the last events had probably erased those feelings, if there had ever been any.

“I’m so, so glad to see you.” She added, and this time she really meant to convey all of her gratitude to him for the half-day that had passed between the phone call and his pilot welcoming her on the plane.

“Do you want to get home, Carrie? Have a shower, breakfast?” Astrid asked gently.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Please take me to him. Just take me there.” Carrie restrained a bout of tears, as the utmost powerlessness descended upon her. “ _Just take me there.”_ She whispered.

* * *

 

**Ten days earlier**

**July 3 rd, 2016**

“Carrie what the fuck is going on?” Maggie seemed half-worried, half-angry with her.

“I don’t know, Mags.” She tried to sound convincing. “I’ve seen it on television too. It’s not like I report to the President of the United States, or anything. He has counselors.”

“But…” Maggie bit her lower lip, hesitant. “But you _must_ know something… I mean, _a war? What the…”_

“It’s my bosses, not me. They do interact with the White House. And no, I’ve no fucking idea what will happen.” Carrie exhaled. “ _Mags_.”

“What.”

“Do you realize I’m sworn to secrecy? I’ve been all these years.” Carrie’s tone softened. “You can’t be unaware of that, can you?”

“I know, for god’s sake. I know.” Maggie admitted as she sat back, and for a few seconds the line got noisier. Carrie realized for those brief moments that if the communication was to be cut at that point, that might be their last conversation.

“You still there?” Carrie asked, trying to hide the panic veiling her tone.

“Yeah, I’m here. Fucking Skype.”

“Listen, Mags. I _do_ know… things.” Carrie articulated slowly. “About this _situation_. But they’re not what you think. I don’t know their plans.”

“But this… _situation…_ is the reason why flew to Israel in April, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And then it all started.”

“Yes.”

“And you knew all along something would happen.”

“Yes.”

They just sat, looking each other in the eye, for some time. Then Maggie spoke.

“I don’t know how you do this, Carrie.” She stated, shaking her head slowly.

“Do what?”                                                                     

“Live. Like that.” Maggie whispered. “I can’t… _conceive_ …” She brought both hands to her temples, squinting her eyes closed. “… How you can wake up, every morning, knowing these things.” Her voice trembled. “Or how you can fall sleep at night. How you could… have a child.”

Carrie’s response melted away in her thoughts before she could even realize its content. What she eventually said was not the prompt, resentful response she had in mind. It was the truth that had pushed hard to rip her chest open, and it finally did.

“It makes me feel alive.” She heard herself say.

“…”

“It’s the only life I’d know. Unless I deluded myself into thinking it weren’t.” Carrie paused. “I can’t lie to myself anymore, Mags.”

Maggie squinted slowly, as if to put her sister’s very soul into better focus.

“I’m sorry. This was none of my fucking business.” She lowered her stare, and Carrie’s innermost secrets came back into her possession. She felt relieved that her sister was not scrutinizing her mind anymore. Although that reply she had given to her had made her feel lighter. For once, it had not been the dialogue between a psychiatrist and her patient as much as a healthy question and a healthy answer, a real one.

“Mags.” Carrie whispered. “We’re in danger, Mags. This shit…” She paused. “It’s fucking real.”

“I…” Maggie brought a hand to her mouth. “I’m scared… That something horrible is gonna happen and you’re not here with us.”

“I know.” Carrie’s fingers wrapped tightly the lithium bottle in her pocket. “I’m scared too.”

“Then come home.”

“I can’t.”

“…”

* * *

 

**July 5 th, 2016**

**Tehran.**

“Carrie Mathison.” He stood slowly, hands on the top of his ebony wood desk, looking straight at her in that way of his, sending shivers down her spine, the blood in her veins frozen solid. She swallowed a lump of air.

_I don’t even know what the actual fuck I am doing here._

“Majid Javadi.” She sustained his stare. “We finally meet again.”

“Not in the best of circumstances though, I’m afraid.” He replied calmly. “But please, have a seat.”

Carrie pulled a heavy, upholstered bergére chair with rococo woodwork and sat down, trying to keep the focus on the meeting, when all that was absorbing her thoughts was the memory of Nicholas Brody calling her from that same room, to announce he had completed his mission and that he was desperate for salvation. She could not keep but imagine three year-old bloodstains decorating the Persian rug into which she was sinking her soles, as nervous as she could be.

“So what is it, miss Mathison?” He asked. “What brought you here in these troubled times? We’re a country at war, as you must know.”

“…”

“Are you lost for words?” He joked in that slimy way of his. “I know this office is intimidating. We still care about style, here.”

Carrie ignored the comment. She bent forward and fixed her stare into his.

“I came in the hope that we’d talk.” She paused. “In the hope that we could still work together.”

“Hm.” He sat back, scrutinizing her. “You do seem to care.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She shrugged. “It’s my job to care about these things.”

He squinted, tapping his fingers against the desk.

“The last time we’ve met, you seemed to have other priorities.” He stated.

“I’m not here to talk about Nicholas Brody.” She replied coldly. “He did what he had to do, and you too.”

“No, sure. I apologize for bringing him up.” He pierced her right through with his stare, and she knew he was all but sorry about throwing in the reference to Brody. “You must have endured much grief. But look where that got us.” He gestured at the room.

_Still the old motherfucker._

“It got us very far. And our countries, very close.” Javadi continued. His voice resonated in the large office. “Up until the Zionist enemy attacked us, and then we had no friends anymore.” He raised his brow. “How come, miss Mathison? How come we got no help from you?”

“You and the State of Israel _both_ delved into a proxy conflict at the borders with Syria that was never declared.” Carrie noted. “Up until you _both_ began bombing border towns. And the occasional city.”

“Still, miss Mathison, we didn’t manage to get help from your people. If Bashar-al-Assad were to be defeated in Syria, the power vacuum will put the existence of Israel at risk. We might even be doing them a favor, helping Assad’s government while they have completely disengaged from the Syrian conflict since it began four years ago.” Javadi paused and Carrie felt chills running down her spine. He lowered his voice as he reprised. “And what is America doing, miss Mathison? I don’t see you helping your Zionist friends as I don’t see you helping my government. Why?”

“I don’t wish to respond to these accusations.” She sat back, arms crossed. “But I know one thing: this war is irresponsible. The Islamic State is beheading men, raping women and transforming entire provinces into wasteland, just so they can get to sell oil to whoever they want, and basically all you worry about is the ‘Zionist Enemy’. And all they worry about is… you.”

“So America stepped back to defend freedom instead of tampering with our silly quarrel. How honorable.” Javadi feigned surprise. “Though I didn’t see you _export democracy_ as you used to. No ‘Shock and Awe’ this time, uh?”

Carrie opted for tolerance. This encounter needed to go a specific way, and that was a friendly way, otherwise she would never get the answers she needed.

“It’s complicated, I’ll admit. Our policy in Syria has been inadequate and our interventions sparse.” She reckoned. “But you must know that our intervention into _your_ conflict against the State of Israel might trigger a series of events possibly getting out of control.” She paused. “Other forces coming into play. Other interests.”

Javadi nodded. “We sure don’t want to prompt the spreading of conflict in the region.” He declared. “But you, as well, sure don’t want to sound rude and ungrateful in looking for answers in exchange for nothing.”

“You’re still bound by an agreement with us. And we’re willing to honor that by allowing you to stay on top of the Iranian intelligence agency. However the war goes.” She replied quickly, but steadily. He seemed to ponder her words.

“Miss Mathison, I’m afraid to know what you want from me. And I’m afraid to give you the answer. Which may be partial and biased from lack of sufficient intel from my officers.”

“In any case, that’s why I’m here to see you.” She paused. “Because you may know what’s behind those five suitcase nukes that were smuggled into Israel by an old friend of yours.”

“Oh, that.” He feigned surprise, gesturing vaguely with his hand. “I must admit that my people were quite puzzled too. That’s what it was, then. Five nukes.” He laughed eerily. “We’ve been banging our heads against the walls of the entire fucking building, miss Mathison. Thank you.”

“So you’ve got nothing to do with that little venture.” Carrie took a deep breath.

_Goddammit, this is gonna drain the life out of me._

“No, miss Mathison.” He declared.

“Who else could be interested in blowing Israel up, honestly?” Carrie hissed. “I don’t like your little mindfucks.” She spread her arms. “ _All this bullshit_. Al-Amin abducting me from a fucking _beach_ , your professor friend having me risk my life to meet him, and whatever game your government, and Hezbollah, and Israel are playing.” She stood. “If I don’t get the truth out of you and act on it, the Russians, your old friends who built the whole of your fucking nuclear facilities, are gonna step into this war of yours in the blink of an eye, and it’s gonna be _a goddamn large-scale bloodbath_.” She crossed her arms. “Because everyone thinks they sold portable nuclear devices from the Cold War times to Hezbollah, and brought them to Israel.”

“So this is what everyone thinks, uh.” Javadi did not seem even remotely shaken by Carrie’s words. “That we’re always the enemy.”

“Everyone wants the truth.” Carrie whispered. “If we care about anything, we should care about the truth at this point.”

“See, miss Mathison? Do you see why this deal of ours will never take off? Because you will _always_ see us, and our friends and allies, as a threat.” Javadi shook his head slowly without losing eye contact with Carrie. “The first thing that came to your minds was that Hezbollah, a party in Lebanon, a political force, was involved in this. Just because we endorse their activities and their plight.”

“…”

“And your President said he’s gonna help the Zionists if the Russians don’t admit to being part of this trade, and if we don’t cease hostility with Israel.” He rubbed his beard. “Hm. I seem to recall something like that, am I wrong? They think we’re friends again with the Russians and that they’re gonna help us in the conflict. How narrow-minded of them.” He tilted his head aside and scrutinized Carrie for a few seconds of silence. Then he stood as well, facing her directly.

“Do you believe this story, miss Mathison?” He asked, neutrally. “You’re clever. You must have your theory.”

Carrie leaned forward to face him up close, hands on top of the desk.

“I don’t believe this story.” She articulated slowly. “And this is why I’m here to see you, instead of hiding underground with my family with stashes of canned food and water like it’s a motherfucking b-movie from the Eighties.”

“Nice. Go on, please.” He replied. “I’m interested.”

“I know there’s more to this because Mordechai Gorion, an Israeli, is involved in the smuggling.” Carrie added. “Eli Goldberg didn’t write that in his piece, and it’s not public. Did you have any idea?”

“Not really.” Javadi exhaled. “My officers never got to him. But we know him, he’s in our dossiers. He’s affiliated to the Mossad though under cover, tried to take out some of our best nuclear researchers in a clandestine operation a few years ago. Outside he’s a successful communications _entrepreneur_ , so to say.” He paused. “Behind the scenes, rumor has it he’s tapped wire across the whole of the Middle East for the Mossad. Most countries secretly allowed that so they could buy his cable for half the price.”

“This explains a lot.” Carrie noted.

“Everyone thinks _we_ are behind this, along with Hezbollah. We’re looking bad.”

“That was just a newspaper piece.” Carrie insisted. “It’s paramount now that we get to the truth. I believe you’re not involved. Saul Berenson needs to believe that too, and at this time, he’s not much into my theory. You need to help me convince him. But I do believe you.”

“Not thanks to _my_ word, I’m sure.” Javadi stated. “You don’t seem to hold me in much esteem.”

“This is not about how I feel.” Carrie hissed. “I have my reasons.”

_Those fucking pictures, the scene at Mal Tel and the Ukrainian bloke. And dead Eli. I believe they are gonna blow you up, not vice-versa._

“According to old intel we got before this came to our attention, the devices developed by the Soviets in the Sixties carried probably six kilotons of nuclear explosive power each, which is nothing compared to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and what came next.” Javadi said abruptly. “But they can do serious damage. And I’m sure you know how worried everyone used to be about them being smuggled into the United States to have them ready in case of a war breaking out between the West and the Sovient Union.”

“I see.” She let him continue.

“Nonetheless, up until a few years ago nuclear backpacks used to be a vintage topic of conversation that nobody really worried about anymore. Nobody was even sure they had been developed to be fully functional, in truth.” Javadi spread his arms. “Up until Stanislav Lunev and Vasili Mitrokhin in different occasions reported publicly how some of the Soviet era backpacks have in fact gone missing in the chaos that followed the fall of the Union,” He paused, and lowered his stare. “…probably ending up in the hands of the Chechens.”

“The Chechens.” Carrie noted. She was starting to visualize the connections between all those pieces of information. “And you came to know this last piece of information, _how_ precisely?”

“Through our man in Ukraine.” Javadi replied quickly. “Up until he disappeared, he was a Physicist working for ROSATOM. Then he got home to fight his old employers… but you know Mikhail’s story already. Professor Hamvar told you that.”

“Is he still your friend?” Carrie asked, already knowing the answer.

“Who, Mikhail Zherdev?” Javadi released a hollow laugh. “He was only our friend through the Russians, up until they were, and he was a real talker when we interrogated him.”

“You interrogated him _why_?”

“Miss Mathison, why would you interrogate anyone?” Javadi raised his stare, feigning impatience. “Let’s not pretend we weren’t checking the political integrity of strangers putting their hands into our nuclear reactors.”

“…”

“We’ve never heard of him again after the USA talks: he was recalled.” He continued. “Then the Russian Federation tightened their bond with the Zionists and after that Ukraine fell into the chaos of civil war.”

“Do you think Mikhail Zherdev might have an interest in damaging your country?” Carrie asked.

“I don’t think so, miss Mathison. But he was sure involved in the war between Ukraine and Russia for the control of the Crimean Peninsula. He has an interest in damaging the Russian Federation, that for sure, and its President and government. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do just so he could see them fall.”

* * *

 

**Istanbul**

**July 7 h**

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Carrie joined her hands. “Astrid, this is great. I’ve no idea how you got this, but we’ll do our best with it, right Saul?”

Saul looked at Carrie, and then at Astrid through the computer screen, although he sat in silence, impassive.

“You’re welcome. I’ve got friends in the right departments, you know.” Astrid joked. “My weapons are well refined.”

“No, seriously.” Carrie insisted. “This is real, solid intel. It’s time to fucking act. Mikhail Zherdev and Mordechai Gorion worked towards different aims, uniting their forces. And Gorion couldn’t care less about Russia’s image at this point.”

“Exactly.” Astrid confirmed. “Zherdev wants to ruin the Russian government’s image and provoke a political crisis in the Federation, and obtain the aid of us all in the Ukrainian war, that’s why he sought contact with the Chechens to help Gorion make the purchase.” She pointed at her own copy of the Zherdev Dossier. Another one lay in Carrie’s lap on the opposite side of Europe.

“Gorion can’t be that clueless, though.” Carrie wondered aloud. “His government has tightened their bond with Russia just recently, and all he does is fraternize with Russia’s enemies?”

“No, he just doesn’t give a shit.” Saul whispered. They all turned to him as he reprised. “He just doesn’t. He did not count on it all to get public, while Zherdev did. They worked towards different aims, and they framed each other. Gorion just wanted to destabilize Iran through a series of small-scale nuclear attacks, and Zherdev couldn’t wait to make it seem like the Russians were involved. Eli did them a favor, speeding up things a bit with his piece.”

“Unknowingly.” Carrie specified.

“Whatever, Carrie.” Saul spread his arms. “We all believed it was the Russians up until two days ago. He played us well with circumstantial evidence such as the Russia-Israel hotline being established with Gorion’s company, the official visits, the economic help. He didn’t even have to work too much towards building up the evidence.” He admitted. “It’s us, we were too worried about the Islamic fucking State infiltrating Europe, and the migrant crisis, and all that shit.”

Astrid and Carrie exchanged looks.

“It’s on.” Saul whispered, more to himself than to Carrie and Astrid. “It’s fucking on.”

“Europe is stuck when it comes to negotiating with Russia. We’re all buying their gas. They’ve got leverage.” Astrid admitted.

“I know, right?” Carrie sat back. “Everybody’s so fucking afraid to make any moves.” She pierced Saul right through with her stare. He took a deep, long breath before speaking.

“Astrid, I’m thankful to you and your people for the sharing of information.” He said, calmly. “Carrie may be right, but we need to make some evaluations. I need the full support of the Agency if I’m to act on this. We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve discussed our options here.” He cut the connection.

Dar Adal leaned against the backrest of his black, leathered rolling chair on the third end of that strange, calm videoconference, taking place as the entire world prepared for a firestorm.

“Saul, do you realize that your move, as you call it, would be _very_ bold?” He asked. “Dangerously so?”

“I do.” Saul replied.

“He does.” Carrie stepped in. “But guess what? Sitting here and _evaluating_ won’t stop a new world fucking war.”

“Carrie.” Saul whispered.

“No, Saul, you let me speak here.” Carrie insisted.

“ _Carrie-_ “

“I risked my life to pursue this. Don’t you think I’d want to get my facts straight before sending Saul out to Russia, negotiating shit?” She retorted. “And what about Astrid? She’s on top of her game too here. Her office didn’t even know I asked her for help.”

“No one tasked either of you with finding anything out.” Dar noted, steadily.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Carrie raised her brow. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Dar, for god’s sake.” Saul intervened. “She’s right. She’s uncovered it, she did a damn brilliant job, and we’re ahead of both the Russians, and the Israeli now.”

“She can’t do whatever the hell she wants, Saul. I’ve already told you that.” Dar spoke without looking at Carrie. “She’s done her job, a job no one had asked her to do, but fine, _brava_. Now it’s on us.”

Carrie looked at Saul impotently. Their silent communication invited her to stay quiet and let him speak, but in all truth all she wanted to do was run away from the impending catastrophe, forget about every moment of fear, every vision of a darker future, if any, for her child; moreover, and most painfully, the thought of not being able to share any of it with Quinn hit her with the blunt force of despair as those slow seconds of silence went by. What would be of him if a war were to break out? What would be of them all? She was sick of mankind, and of herself for being sick of it.

Later that day, Saul entered a meeting he himself had called at the Consulate General of the United States in Ankara, Turkey, half-worried, half-exhilarated by the weight he was carrying.

 _World fucking peace. What a joke._ He thought.


	10. Zeitgeist

_“No man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit.”_  
  
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_

* * *

**Berlin**

**July 13 th, 8pm GMT**

Carrie gently pulled the door opened to Quinn’s shady bedroom. She froze for the fraction of a second at the sight of him. After all that worry, and fear, and danger, after all that solitude and emotional confinement, the guardian of her innermost feelings still lay there, and there was no need to hide anything anymore, no need to lie or justify herself, no need for excuses or seeking validation. The one single soul who had truly known hers was alive, and breathing, tangible to her. A surge of tenderness overwhelmed her as blood rushed to her face, and invincible warmth ran through her veins. That was her homecoming: even though no home could be resembled by that cold, desperate place where he looked like a flicker of himself, Quinn’s mere, corporeal presence before her eyes comforted Carrie, after a thousand dreams or nightmares which had left her awakenings empty-handed in solitary beds across Europe and the Middle East.

“Hi.” She whispered.

He lay in bed eyes open, forced in a straight supine position by a large cushion wedged beneath his left arm twisted unnaturally to the side, extending all along the curve of his hip. He did not show the slightest reaction to her presence. Rhythmic, low frequency noise was coming from a ventilator Carrie could not locate.

“ _Quinn_.” She repeated; a couple of tears escaped her as she approached him slowly, and saw the tracheostomy tube and the pallor on his cheeks. Quinn’s room was sheltered and quiet. Outside it had been raining heavily: a sudden change from the shy, sunny dawn that had welcomed her to Berlin, brought by the strong winds blowing south from the Scandinavian peninsula. Ignoring the empty chair abandoned in a corner beside the large window facing the rainy city, Carrie crouched slowly beside Quinn and laid down her cheek in the upturned palm of his right hand as she wept quietly, her sighs masked by the noise of the downpour.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, not even sure why she was apologizing to him. In truth, she had made the only decision he would have ever endorsed if he had been available for discussion. “I’m so sorry.”

_What the fuck are you doing, Carrie._

“I can’t go home, Quinn.” She whispered. “There’s no time. I… _Things_ are happening, and I…”

She quit talking, piercing his wide-open stare with hers, looking for meaning.

“Are you there?”

_I’m here._

He lay still, unresponsive. Carrie just turned her head, muffling a sigh.

"Shit, Quinn." She exhaled. " _Shit._ "

“Carrie.” The doctor greeted her, cracking the door open. “It’s good to see you back.” He smiled. Carrie stood quickly, wiping her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. The doctor seemed to understand that he had interrupted a private moment. She did not reply. He approached her.

"Peter," He smiled, rubbing Quinn's arm. "Good morning. Carrie's here. See?" He checked Quinn's pulse-oxymeter and the tracheostomy tube plug.

"He's been having oxygenation problems lately." He noted sadly.

_Tell me about that._

"What does that mean? That he can't breathe?" Asked Carrie.

_I wish._

"It's not that bad at the moment. But we fear for these patients that their lungs might collapse for the difficulties they have," He paused, looking at Quinn lying motionless in bed. "We can't always get them to cough on their own, you know. We do what we can to clean their airways, but it’s painful for them, and not always enough."

"He didn't have a tracheostomy when I left though."

"He got pneumonia last month. That was quite unfortunate."

_Yeah. ‘Cause you couldn’t let me go my own fucking way._

Carrie looked down at Quinn, then back at the doctor. He understood promptly.

"Let's get some coffee, shall we." He proposed.

_No. Keep talking. Stay._

They headed out. With a final glance behind, Carrie gently pushed the door closed.

“I’ll be back.” She whispered, more to herself that to Quinn.

He was falling back into _it._ Dazed, his head spun as the noises and sensations from the room - Carrie's breath, her touch on his skin, the rain pouring outside, the smell of bleach and medicine - got more and more penetrating to the point of becoming unbearable. Air itself had gotten thick, gluey: he could not breathe freely and his limbs felt heavier. Carrie's face got blurry. He was not even scared anymore. He was relapsing. He was losing awareness and he was just waiting for the familiar silence that would embrace him once again; for how long this time, he did not know. He would resurface slowly, once again, or never. His brain started retiring from the world, overwhelmed by the emotional and physical stimulation it was receiving. No one on the outside ever noticed his short-lived wakeful moments: he was alone in there, as he was in the darkness he had longed for all his life and was now his companion. It would be easy to fade into it, to reunite with oblivion; it was comforting, and solitary as it could get, and safe. He loved it, he longed for it even though the world of the living was still intoxicating to his senses, even though he desired to touch and feel and be heard: every time it was just so much easier to transition back into the tranquility of that bottomless abyss: it required no effort and no hope to accept it upon himself, and no disappointment would ever follow. The chemistry of his brain was holding him captive and he yearned for its torment, as an inebriated lover who cannot tell poison from medicine: he craved that sweet and empty sleep when it would come to lead him into temptation, holding out its welcoming branches to wrap his weak body in a safe embrace. He gave in.

They walked out. As they reached the cafeteria, Carrie noticed it was unusually deserted.

"Scary times." The doctor murmured over his double espresso. "Sad and scary times indeed."

"Yeah." Carrie stirred her hot tea. "The newspapers are not certainly helping. Everybody’s an expert in international relations, lately.”

The doctor put his cup back onto the table and sat, arms crossed on his chest. "People are panicking.” He noted. “I've seen it grow stronger by the day."

The television set hanging from a wall on the opposite side of the room was broadcasting the news. A small crowd stood just below the screen, looking up. Audio clips from the press conferences held by the European ministries of Foreign Affairs were accompanied by images of the U.S. Navy maneuvering in international waters a few miles off the coast of Iran, in the Persian Gulf, and by a recording of the latest EU Parliament plenary, with close-ups on the representatives' faces. The firm voice of the U.S. President followed, as footage streamed from Europe and the Middle East, followed by Moscow's Red Square, where a peace march was being violently repressed by the police. Carrie held on to the Lithium bottle in her right pocket, gripping it as strongly as she could to repress the urge of standing up and running away from there, to her office, to her world.

 _I need to call Saul. I need to know. I can't be here.  
_ She started panicking, imprisoned by her own feelings, which had forced her back in Germany, where there was nothing she could do to avoid a catastrophe.

"Should we be worried, Carrie?" The doctor asked tentatively, interrupting her stream of consciousness. "I fear for my patients, and my family too."

She breathed in deeply, taking her time to reply, and pondering her words when she did, although there was not much to tiptoe around.

"I have no exact idea whether or not this situation will escalate even further. It’s in other people’s hands." She admitted. "But yeah. We should all be worried. The possibility of war... it's real. More real than it’s been in the last decades after the end of the Cold War."

_What's the point in keeping it a secret? These people are scared out of their minds anyway._

The news ended and the crowd dispersed. Now the tv broadcast a talk show with the German Chancellor. The hospital cafeteria was unusually empty.

"Besides," Said the doctor. "I'm really happy for Peter that you're here. He's been having it rough lately."

"Has he?" She asked, her insides suddenly heavy.

"I must admit, we're at loss, at this point, Carrie." He declared sadly. "There's not much more we can do. He's worsening, physically. Mentally, I have no clue anymore."

Carrie did not react.

"He's been struggling for breath lately: two resp crises, and then pneumonia in late May got him on the ventilator." He shook his head in resignation. "The toxins from the sarin got into his brain deeply, and whatever time was needed by his tissues for poison disposal… Well, I’m afraid that’s now over. Plus, any neuronal rewiring we may have seen so far after the hemorrhage seems to be over by now."

Carrie had to swallow a lump of tears travelling up her throat.

"He's been confined to his room since the pneumonia." The doctor continued. "We haven't even tried the wheelchair anymore. He's too weak, blood pressure's going crazy. And moving him, with the ventilator and everything… It’s just too dangerous." He admitted. “We’re only doing the minimum amount of physical therapy required to prevent bedsores and muscular wasting, without moving him from his bed.”

“I see.” Carrie nodded coldly.

"I'm afraid he's giving up, Carrie." He reprised. "I told Astrid I was worried about this. And I believe it’s for real this time."

Like with all of his patients, like he wanted them all to live so badly, he was holding on to hope for Quinn as well: and so much more than for anybody else. He had been pushing his survival for months, and he felt that battle very deeply owing to the peculiarity of the situation. It looked to him as if Peter Quinn making it out of there would be a sign from the heavens that evil shall not prevail. His question, now, was whether or not there had been a point whatsoever in bargaining like that with whatever forces drove the destinies of the world and the lives of everyone.

_If I only managed to keep him alive one more week. One more month..._

Pushing away his own fears and that poisonous superstition that was driving his faith in science out of its righteous path, the doctor placed a hand on Carrie's forearm and smiled resignedly.

"Go be with him, Carrie." He suggested gently. "That’s where you should be now. Whatever happens."

* * *

 

**8 hours earlier**

**Embassy of the United States in Ankara, Turkey**

 

“Good morning, Saul.”

“Ambassador.”

They sat down at the marbled oval table, the only two people in that spacious room with light filtering in from the paneled curtains.

“So, what’s your strategy?” Asked the Ambassador. “Are we driving straight into the matter, or…?”

“I think we should, Sarah.” He nodded. “No gameplay. Not on our part.”

She sat back, stare pointed somewhere indefinite beyond Saul. Sarah Marie Davenport was a natural born diplomat. A mathematician with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she had made a quick career in the Intelligence as an expert in codes and communication encryption, rising to the direction of her department by her tenth year of service, at the age of just 38 years old. The only woman in a male-populated environment, side by side with engineers, specialists in information technology and shady black ops boys bugging the best protected devices at night and reporting to her in the mornings before disappearing till the next mission, Sarah had learned how to make herself heard and respected; she had never thought she would have to choose between respect for her mind and admiration for her body: as an emancipated, intelligent and well-spoken woman, she just did not care about drawing a sense of self-assurance from her looks. And that made her unknowingly desirable nonetheless to most of her colleagues, in the exact same way as their unkempt appearance, second-day scruffs and messy hair attracted her with their genuineness, so different from the men in higher offices. Sarah had married one of them, an engineer, a few years into her direction of the encryption lab, just when she had gotten to terms with her career concerns and solitary dinners accompanied by fizzy wine. When she thought she had it all at 45, positive that happiness had touched her finally with someone she loved and was ready grow old with, and that it would be enough forever, she had gotten pregnant, much to her own surprise given her age, and had given birth to their beautiful red haired twin boys, just to see her husband eventually killed in the 12/12 attack at Langley. She was on maternity leave then, and still considered that as a way of the world to get even with her; a diabolical karmic vendetta for so many unexpected blessings. Trying to focus on her career outside the operational sections of the Agency, she had run for diplomatic service: having transitioned quickly to her first appointment as mission chief in Iran after the US Talks of 2013, she was in Chad in 2014 as deputy Consul for two years, to be finally appointed as Ambassador of the United States in Turkey in January, 2016. Sarah did not sleep at night if not for a few hours: she had been under extreme pressure in Turkey, as the migrant and ISIS crises both progressed without any effective strategy from the EU and the US, while the war between Israel and Iran had progressed to the point it was currently at. Every night, she pretended her husband was back home in the States, forced at the Headquarters by fieldwork, just unable to follow her around. For half an hour of her life, every night, that lie would save her some despair as she played with her sons, now in preschool with the children of other civil servants from everywhere in the world, and lull her to sleep. In a way, the stories Sarah had caught at work about Carrie Mathison and her not-so-secret, forbidden love affair and pregnancy with some asset from god knew where, who had eventually died on a mission - as people seemed to have gathered -, had made her sympathize with her the exact moment they had met each other a few months earlier in Istanbul. They had never spoken about their respective tragedies, but hey had always looked up to each other with much respect.

“She did a great job.” She reflected aloud. Saul turned to her.

“Who?”

“Carrie. You should trust her more.”

“I do trust her, Sarah.”

“She’s not here though.”

“That’s not her place to be.” Saul replied hastily.

“She’s mission chief here, Saul. I’d have wanted her to be with us. She has served the Agency well.”

“I think she’s done enough. She needed some time for herself, Sarah. There’s nothing she can do now.” Saul’s sad glance extinguished Sarah’s argumentative mood. “I made that decision.”

Margalit Tzedek, Head of Mossad, walked in as Sarah and Saul both stood to greet her. She was followed by Aaron Strauss, deputy Head. Both of them wore undecipherable looks and shook hands coldly with Saul and the Ambassador. Tea was served by an intern whose nervousness translated in the quickest ceremonial that room had ever seen, as the young man almost threw the cups and teapot at the guests before marching out as swiftly as he could. Dar Adal caught the door right before it slammed closed and slipped in.

“Ambassador, Saul.” He greeted them. “Mag, mr. Strauss, welcome to the American Embassy. Hope your flight was pleasant.”

He sat between the two delegations, blaming his stinging headache on the jetlag and the lack of sleep he had been forced to endure in the last days. He was feeling like he had been on call for an entire century.

“So.” The Ambassador began. “As everyone here is aware of, the ultimatum is running out.”

“We’re _well_ aware of that, your excellence.” Tzedek intervened. “Our Agency has pulled some strings to obtain intel on how the Russian Federation is going to proceed once the ultimatum is over.”

“They’re gonna blow y’all up, Mag. No need to pull any strings to gather that.” Saul interrupted her. “Come on. This is not the point.”

Sarah pierced him right through with a fiery glance.

_Shut up, Saul._

Margalit Tzedek did not show the slightest reaction to Saul’s comment. Strauss passed her a flat cardboard folder, which she opened by pulling an elastic band on its side. A few paper sheets with technical drawings slipped out. She reordered them quickly on the table.

“Here’s a list and maps of likely targets across the Country.” She declared, spreading the sheets on the table so that everybody could see. “Mostly government buildings, military bases and of course,” She raised her stare from the papers. “The Negev Nuclear Research Center.”

“How many more?” Asked the Ambassador. “How many more nuclear plants?”

Neither Tzedek nor Strauss answered her question. They sat in silence, unsurprised and impassive.

“We all know you’ve got them, Mag.” Saul intervened.

“Saul.” Dar Adal warned him in a whisper.

“Israel would not be the first Country in the Middle East having developed nuclear programs for military use.” Strauss intervened. “If that was _even_ confirmed.”

“Oh, come on.” Saul interrupted him, impatiently. “Come _the fuck_ on, son. You’ve been using this non-admission strategy for decades. Even now that you guys want us to cover your asses, you’re fucking denying it?”

“Our words represent Israel’s official stance on nuclear programs.”

“I’m sure Israel would join the Nonproliferation Treaty if it was otherwise.” Sarah declared. “Am I right?”

The Israelis did not answer immediately. When they did, Tzedek spoke.

“Your excellence, we have negotiated this meeting with your Head of the Central Intelligence Agency, here, and mr. Berenson, Chief of European Affairs. We are not here to discuss other topics.”

“Sure you aren’t.” Sarah nodded gently. “Because you too understand that we’ve got a much bigger issue in our hands.”

“Exactly.” Stepped in Strauss. “That’s why we are asking for your support against the Russian Federation if they were to intervene in our conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Do you realize what that would mean, globally?” Dar Adal asked. “It would greatly destabilize the entire region, if not worse.”

“Israel’s security is paramount to us, you surely understand.” Tzedek replied. “We are here to assure you that our Country is going to preserve the preferential communications and relationships with the United States.”

“In exchange for our military aid in this war.” Saul finished her sentence. “How original.”

“You know how this works, Saul.” Tzedek commented. “You shouldn’t be surprised by my proposal.”

The Ambassador and Saul exchanged looks.

“Although…” He began, after a few moments of complete silence in the room. “Although, you know Mag, there’s a few details that I still can’t quite grasp.” He stood. “First, we should still be trying to prevent this ultimatum from running over without a deal being cut between the parties.” He turned to Sarah. “The Ambassador and I have been working on a few possible scenarios of the opposite case, and none of them seem quite appealing.” He started pacing the room, hands entwined behind his back, looking straight down at the floor, intently, as he spoke.

“You’re still saying you’re splitting atoms for peaceful purposes.” He noted. “And you know what, Mag? I fucking believe you. Why should I _not_?”

“…”

Margalit Tzedek sat back, arms crossed on her chest. Her lips tightened as she listened to Saul. Her second in charge threw a glance at her, which she did not reciprocate. Dar Adal made an effort to hide the grin that was twisting the corner of his mouth.

 _Saul Berenson. You old motherfucker.  
_ “…Because in truth,” Saul continued. “If the Russians step into that mess you have going on over there, and we do too, nobody is gonna care about the Nonproliferation Treaty anymore.” He shrugged. “Nobody is gonna be pointing their finger at your nukes by then.” He quit walking and turned to the table. “Maybe it won’t be today. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow. But if the conflict were to spread, then in a month, or six, someone is gonna fire the first one, Mag.” He declared, spreading his arms. “And whoever that is, a counterstrike will follow, and we won’t be counting the signatures in the fucking Treaty anymore.”

“What are you implying, Saul?” Tzedek asked. “That we are only waiting for a chance to blow up the Islamic Republic of Iran?”

“Maybe. Maybe in a bigger, wilder war that would be deemed reasonable.” Saul raised his brow. “What do I know? You hate each other. You hate what each other represents in the region. It’s waiting to happen.” He looked at Sarah Davenport and Dar Adal, intensely. Dar then spoke.

“Moreover, your Country has tightened their bond with the Russian Federation recently.” He shook his head. “I wonder what makes you think they’d pledge alliance to your enemy. Unless there’s more to this.” He spread his arms. “And you’re hiding it.”

“What you suggest is reasonable. And although we cannot discuss our foreign policies in this context, Dar,” said Tzedek. “Iran’s been foraging Hezbollah, who are fighting Daesh in the Syrian region as a complement to fighting _us_ in Palestine.”

“The Russians are the only ones actively and constantly engaged in military action there against the Islamic State.” Added Strauss. “Maybe they’re seeing some potential in that common fight.”

“As we speak, my Country is waiting for a guilty plea from the Russian Federation,” Sarah intervened. “Admitting that they smuggled nuclear devices into Israel, on Iranian orders. We know that’s not coming. And I’m afraid you do too.”

“How the Russian Federation will respond to _your_ ultimatum is none of our business and lies beyond the scope of this meeting,” said Aaron Strauss. “Your government forced the situation. We are only here discussing _informally_ the possibility that your secret service helps us track down any military plans to annihilate the State of Israel.”

“I’m sure we’d continue helping you as we’ve been doing since 1948, mister Strauss. Of course we would. We have interests in the region too.” Sarah continued. “Although I have to admit, we’d probably be doing so with slightly diminished… _joy…_ so to say, if we were to know that this situation was somehow…” She hesitated, choosing her words “… _manipulated_ into the mess it’s become by now.”

“We would not be accepting any such allegations.” Tzedek stood and turned to Dar Adal. “Not like this, Dar. Our people are in danger and that’s what counts. We are asking _politely_ and thanks to your preferential relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, that you help us gather some knowledge of what’s coming.”

“If that’s the case,” Dar raised his brow. “We’re here to help. With some new knowledge we got.”

“You see, Mag.” Saul leaned back against the windowsill. “You see… We cannot cut the cord with Israel. Rest assured of that. Although,” He paused, tilting his head aside. “…we may be trying to avoid a global war here, and you don’t quite seem as appreciative of our attempts as one would imagine.”

Nobody moved, or replied. They all sat in silence. Saul felt nauseous, his insides heavier into his chest, heart pounding. He was excited, and scared. He was not even thinking about what truly was that he had in his hands, the gravity of the words he was pronouncing, the twists and turns they could carry with them. He only thought about Carrie trespassing the border with a country at war, abducted by terrorists, seated in Javadi’s office, Carrie at Quinn’s bedside the day they had averted the attack in Berlin, Carrie pregnant and grieving. He only thought about her and all she had sacrificed without thinking twice, probably without thinking about it as a sacrifice at all. He felt in communion with her on that, and loved her for sharing that madness with him, and wished, for her and himself as well, that it would all be over at once.

“We could have gone public, you know.” He reprised. “With this intel we got.” He walked to Tzedek and stood behind her shoulders. She had to turn back to look at him as he spoke again. “But it’s not what we usually do. Unless the circumstances call for such a move.”

“Eli Goldberg went public already.” Tzedek stood to face him. “We came in peace, we want this to be over as much as you do.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that.” Dar Adal intervened. “I’m quite fucking sure you want it to be over, Mag.” He snarled. “You want that so bad, that you’re actually taking care of it as we speak,” He declared coldly. “…your way, as Eli implied. Just not giving a _flying fuck –_ ”

“Dar.” Saul interrupted him. “It’s enough. It’s time to get it over with.”

“Yeah Saul, it’s time to stop playing games, or is it?” Tzedek intervened. “If this is your position as regards this informal request on part of our Agency, then there’s nothing more we should be saying to each other.”

Everybody sat in silence for a few moments while heavy clouds were clustering above Ankara, preparing it for one of its rare summertime downpours.

“Actually, there _is_ something.” Saul threw a glance at the Ambassador. Dar Adal tried to mask his own surprise.

_What’s with you, goddammit._

“Yes, in fact, we might have another party in this discussion.” Sarah lifted the intercom receiver and dialed a two-figure number. “Let them in, please.”

* * *

 

**Berlin**

**July 13 th, 10pm GMT**

 

“Why.”

Carrie woke up suddenly at the sound of a voice coming seemingly from the depths of another world.

“Why am. I here.” Quinn hissed, struggling to talk while breathing out the small amount of air flowing through his tracheostomy tube. She stood abruptly from her armchair and rushed to his bedside.

“0h god.” She brought a hand to her mouth, frozen at the sight of Quinn looking up at her meaningfully and desperately, bloodshot eyes and arched back, incommunicable terror in his irises. Incapable of making contact, as if it could break the charm of his wakefulness, she stood for a handful of seconds that seemed to last forever.

“Carrie.” He exhaled. “Help me.”

“Hold on Quinn.” Finally thrown aback into reality, she rushed to the door. The hallway was deserted and immersed in complete darkness. “Nurse!”

_Oh, no. Not now._

Carrie turned back to Quinn to see his heart rate monitor spiking up.

“It’s nothing, just breathe.”

_Nobody’s here._

“Carrie.” He panted. She got back to him.

“Hold on Quinn. They’re coming.” She lied.

“How long…” He could not finish his sentence before he had to catch his breath again, his airways forced open by the ventilator.

“You’re at the hospital. It’s gonna be alright.”

“ _Carrie_.” He repeated, getting paler and sweatier as he articulated her name.

“I’m here.”

“It hurts.”

One hand squeezing his shoulder, she extended her free arm to reach for the bedside alarm on the opposite side of the headboard.

“No.” He exhaled as the grip of his fingers wore off slowly around her wrist.

“Quinn what the fuck.”

“No.”

Carrie’s sensory pathways shut down. It was only the two of them, without the machinery buzzing and beeping; the rain outside had subsided too.

_He’s alive. He’s still in there._

They exchanged looks. Without turning her gaze from his, she crouched beside him, their faces closer than they had been in a long time.

“Quinn, you’re back.” She whispered, trying in vain to control herself. “You are.” Tears prickled her eyelids. He did not react. Unable to dominate the tremors in his muscles, he lay there helpless in the face of her joy.

“Where’s. C-carrie.” His voice was altered and almost inaudible flowing through the tube along with the remaining air in his lungs, as he seemed to relapse into confusion. “What’s. Here.”

She placed a hand on his cheek, turning his face slightly to her side. “I’m here. Look at me. You’re at the hospital. You’re waking up.” She caressed him slowly. “I’m here with you, Quinn, I’m not leaving.”

“It hurts.” His left hip jolted in a spasm. “I don’t. Want…”

“I know. I’m gonna get help, okay?” She tried to stand.

“No.”

“I’m gonna be back in a minute–“

“No.” He started sobbing heavily, gaze fixed into the ceiling. “Where’s. Carrie.”

“Quinn. We need help.”

“Let me go.”

Carrie breathed her own tears in as his words sank in.

“ _I can’t_.” She grasped his hand tightly. “I need you _. I love you_.” She whispered.

_It’s out. It’s out there now. Don’t make me do this to you. Please, please, please._

“Carrie?” He asked feebly. Another push from the ventilator followed. “What’s. Here.”

“It’s the hospital in Berlin.” She repeated.

“Let me go.” He sighed. “Don’t. Hurt me. I d-don’t. W-want this. _Carrie_.”

And she saw _it_ in him. Evil and terror, lurking behind his eyes, ripping his soul apart, bleaching his complexion and poisoning his veins, infiltrating what was left of his brain.

“They’re coming. To get me.” He craned his neck backwards, his stare drifting away from Carrie’s once again. “The gas. Is here. Help me.”

As if she had been there with him the day it happened, she saw him fight for his life, already wounded, soaked in despair, yet ready to run from inevitable death. And she saw him as he lost his battle, she saw him being ushered into the gas chamber while looking straight at the window, holding his head up high for the entire world watching afterwards, against the reek leaking slowly from the gas tanks and the devil witnessing his agony beyond the glass panel, where pure, clean air and salvation and life and hope were. Carrie felt nauseated, and terrified, as the strangest mixture of hatred and piety for the deviated minds that could have conceived something so utterly diabolic got ahold of her feelings. It was all in Quinn’s devastated body and mind, in his eyes imploring mercy and oblivion, in his fingers that could not even collect enough strength to keep their grasp on her forearm. It was all in the oxygen tank forcing life into him, in the vacuity of his stare, in his plea for rest. Carrie heard distinctly the voices of each and every soul suffocated by men in search for their page in the history books begging for mercy in Quinn’s voice.

_Let me go._

Everybody in the Unit, as well as the citizens of Berlin and possibly the Western world, had gathered around their television sets, computers, tablets and basically any devices that could broadcast or live stream the news as the ultimatum approached its end. Berlin was a ghost city as many were already camped out in the underground tunnels or their own cellars, waiting for the Apocalypse they figured would follow the deadline: panic had spread quickly on Facebook and Twitter, and nobody was going to jeopardize their lives just to look rational in the face of the impending nuclear holocaust that all of the hashtags were more or less implying. The world was divided between those binging on newspaper articles and televised late night debates, and those already securing their windowpanes with adhesive tape and shielding their cellar doors with piled mattresses, transporting canned tuna and beans and water bottles below ground. Not a soul was walking the corridors of the Neurorehabilitation Unit: those patients who were well enough to be moved had been transferred to the lower floors, and some had been discharged upon request from their families. The doctors and nurses had gathered in the cafeteria to watch the news after the evening round and Carrie realized that only the bedside alarm would have gotten them upstairs. There was nothing she could do to avoid the inevitable as she imagined Saul’s tactics failing, and even fear had abandoned her at that point. Oblivious of anything else going on outside that room, she suppressed the images of her family and daughter assaulting her mind, trained as she was to chase away certain distractions.

_There’s nothing I can do for you now. Please, forgive me._

The image of her child in another continent, her smile and voice and the warmth of her skin faded away in the maze of her thoughts. She bent over to him.

“Quinn. Look at me, now. Would you?”

He did not react.

“Just a little effort.” She encouraged him, cupping his cheeks in her hands as she smiled.

His breaths slowed down as his gaze focused on hers.

“That’s good.” She planted a light, slow kiss on his forehead, and then descended to his lips, dried and tightened, sustaining herself on the sides of the mattress as she climbed up to his bed without interrupting the kiss. She laid herself down beside him, nestling his head against her chest.

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;” She began, her voice down to a whisper, caressing his cheek. “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

_Don’t be scared. My brave, brave soldier._

Without turning her gaze from his, she grabbed the plastic nozzle at the joint between the two ends of the tracheostomy tube in a tight grip and twisted it.

“Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple–” Her voice broke as she detached the shorter extremity of the tube, terminating into a system of gauzes protecting the hole in Quinn’s throat, from the longer section, hooked to the ventilator behind the headboard of the bed. He gasped as air hissed its way out of his throat.

“And He who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.” She continued, running her fingertips on his lips and cheekbones, wiping his tears. “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.”

As he looked straight into her eyes, the torment in him was gone. She could only see the deepest and purest devotion, respect, love.

_A beacon, steering you clear of the rocks._

Once again, his promise reverberated in her mind.

“The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.”

Quinn closed his eyes.

_I fucking love you, Carrie._

“He will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”


	11. Genesis

"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away."

Song of Songs, 8:6-7

* * *

 

 **Berlin**  
**July 14th, 2016  
** **4AM**

The first explosion had come out of nowhere. It had been spectacular, deafening, and so bright, blooming in the sky like a massive, fiery flower as the entire city lit up in its wake. Then people had begun to come out in the streets, summoned by the force of fire and sound to witness the blazing spectacle of a second and third explosion, visions of light and color that fear had made them forget. Not a word had been spoken as children and adults watched the flames waltzing with the blackest of moonless skies as a velvety background. Nobody really knew who had fired them, where they had come from and how, as they saw house roofs and church steeples dressed in orange and red and fuchsia, and each other’s faces foggy in the smoke, eyes up, burning and teary for the emotion of being _inside_ history, in that very moment, overwhelmed by the feeling of having witnessed something terrible first, and now extraordinary. Families and groups of friends had then started retiring from the streets, finding shelter under patios and colonnades, snuggling up close to each other without turning their gazes from that astounding summer sky burning with loud colors. Then, everybody had started to dance and sing under the fires, sharing their breathlessness and madness and sweat and joy in the unbelievable aftermath of a collective brush with death.

_Fireworks._

The first, loud explosion startled Carrie awake at Quinn’s side: her eyes blinked open in a room flooded by vivid light, with reflections from the fireworks twirling across the ceiling, and people’s voices echoing from the street.

_Fireworks._

As she realized the meaning of that vision of light, she slowly became aware of the weight of Quinn’s body against hers, as well as of the events leading up to that moment. She looked down at him, his eyelids so thin and translucent she could see the fair blue threading of capillaries.

_It’s over, Quinn. Other days will rise. Other years. I’ll see my child again._

An incommensurable sadness descended upon her like a heavy cape, secluding her from the elation going on outside.

_I wish you’d seen this. We’d have gone outside to celebrate._

Nobody had entered the room, or touched the ventilator and heart rate monitor, which she had carefully turned off the night before. She had been the only companion to his journey, the only witness to his last plea for peace, the last living vision in his eyes: overtaken by sweetness, she bent over.

“I’d have kissed you.” She whispered to him.

* * *

**Ankara,**  
**July 14th, 2016**  
**6.30 AM**

“…But you promised, you did…” Mikhail Zherdev exhaled, pallor conquering his face. “Saul. I trusted you.”

“I’m sorry, Mika.” They were seated at the polished melamine table of the detention room in the US Embassy in Ankara. Saul tried to maintain his composure, but it was clear how uneasy and wrong that felt to him as well. “We did all we could. It was their condition. You achieved what you wanted though.”

“Please don’t send me back to them.” Zherdev whispered. “I’ll be a dead man the moment they put their hands on me.”

“Your country is finally free.” Saul noted. “You devoted your life to that, you should be proud.”

“I am.” Zherdev admitted. “I am, and I don’t fear death.”

“They wanted you, and we agreed on the condition that the nuke scandal would be put to rest publicly by their media and ours.”

Mikhail Zherdev lowered his stare. In fact, all he had obtained was half of what he had fought for: he was in that battle, he had been from the beginning, for his country; and now the Ukraine was apparently free from any Russian interferences, and officially protected by NATO and the United States, free to auto-determine and maybe even begin a process for entering the EU.

“But the Russian establishment…” He began. “They’re still there, marching in triumph over this deal and the preservation of world fucking peace.”

“Ain’t that what we all want, my friend?” Saul sat back. “If Russia were to invade eastern Ukraine from now on, partisan resistance will not be alone. Your people, unlike Crimeans, feel Ukrainian. And now they have us at their side, officially.”

Zherdev rubbed his beard. “I’m sure this will be good in the long term. I’ve fought for this.” He remarked. “But it’s not the point, Saul.”

“The greatest check against Russian interference in your country,” Saul continued. “Is the power of Ukrainian public opinion, and from now on NATO and the US are with you on that”.

“I can’t fucking see how they accepted that.”

“We agreed to recognize their annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Crimeans wanted that, Russia wanted that.”

“You’re so full of shit, Saul. My country is now divided thanks to your deal.” Zherdev looked on sadly. “And they accepted to retire their troops from eastern Ukraine. Why.”

“Don’t you see it, Mika?” Saul raised his brow. “We won. They knew how bad they’d look if we said that their nukes had been traded by an employee of the Russian government. They’ll look as if they’ve lost track of their own stuff.”

“They did lose track of it. Everyone knows that.”

“Fair enough. It’s been out since the nineties.” Said Saul. “It’s also true that we acted in everyone’s best interests, though. It’s back in the realm of allegations now. Nobody saw those backpacks blow up anyone, anywhere. Nobody can confirm any of the things Eli Goldberg said.”

“Except me.”

“Except you.”

They sat in silence.

“But you promised you’d save my life if I came here to face the Israelis.” Zherdev remarked, resignedly. “I came here so you’d have living fucking evidence of your claims against Gorion”. He stood, hands holding his temples. “You had me here in front of everybody, the Mossad, the Iranians. I did what you asked.”

“You did that because you were trapped. Because we knew your name and we came for you.” Saul noted. “Did you really think you had a choice after your cover was blown? You wouldn’t have had a problem with the Mossad blowing Teheran up.”

“I’d never sell this story. I got most of what I wanted anyway.” He concluded, standing helplessly in front of Saul, who hesitated for a handful of seconds before replying.

“I’m sorry, Mika.” He said. “You know how things work.”

* * *

_He’s alive._

Quinn’s breath tickled Carrie’s lips as she leaned forward.

“Quinn.” She called softly. “Oh god.” She cupped his cheeks in her palms, as she had done a few hours earlier: now though, his face was warm and dry, and the pallor and sweat had slightly receded.

_He’s breathing on his own._

She looked down at the mutilated tracheostomy tube. Air was flowing out through its narrow hole as Quinn exhaled quietly, one slow breath in and out every few seconds. Outside, the fireworks had left a thick colored fog lingering over Berlin. The voices and music from the street and the park outside the hospital had multiplied even at that ungodly hour, while dwellings and shelters had been left empty in the wake of peace. Dawn was already starting to paint the sky in a purple tint; Carrie could see it peeking up from the horizon against the silhouettes of the buildings, announcing a majestic sunrise in just about an hour: an interval so brief between now and then, she thought, a wake so much shorter than that hopeless, bottomless night of fear whose tentacles had just released her guts. The longest wake of her life, now over.

_You’re alive._

She snuggled up closer to him, and wrapped his chest with her arm, this time nestling her own head in his collarbone as the safest of shelters, giving in to that unfathomable, ancestral life force flowing in him which nothing could apparently extinguish; lulled by the quiet rhythm of Quinn’s spontaneous breaths, she lied there, fully awake and alert to every input from her senses.

_I let you go and you found me again._

Caressed by the first lights of dawn, she breathed in the smell of his skin.

* * *

**October, 2016**

_'Atomic Hoax', they called it. Everybody is so self-satisfied with the idea of this gigantic, reeking peace-preserving lie. They probably do believe it themselves. I wonder how they sleep at night knowing how they maneuvered this mess into the newspaper pieces debunking Goldberg’s revelations and the whole nuke incident over in Tel Aviv. Yeah, because everyone still believed fucking Javadi wanted to blow the whole of Israel to kingdom come with help from the Russians when the disclaimer hit the news, the morning Carrie tried to take me out. War is over, though. Happy fucking Christmas. It’s strange how a conflict developed from beginning to end while I was shitting myself and eating through a tube the whole time: I think this one may have been the only recent war in the Middle East where I didn’t get a chance to operate a long-distance precision rifle against some motherfucker. Too bad. People do seem to enjoy peace though, and I must admit it looks quite nice, and relaxed. Besides, I don’t think it’ll last for long, as it never fucking does._  
_So now everyone is convinced that Goldberg was a madman, and Saul blackmailed the Israelis to have them toss the nuclear backpacks in exchange for our silence on their little venture against Iran. He did a great job and nothing was leaked to the media that he didn’t want, even though he had to soil Goldberg’s grave in mud. And sell that poor bastard Zherdev to the Russians. But hey, civil war in Ukraine is over as well, because nothing’s for nothing, uh? I just hope that Ukrainians don’t obsess too much over Crimea when they realize they got half of what they wanted._ _So everyone got something, and somebody died, and I didn’t. Looks like I won Lucky Son of a Bitch of the Year, if you don’t count the fact that I was really done with bedwetting and ventilators so I was kinda ready to carry my comatose ass to hell. But then I woke. Carrie was there, and I’d seen her recite the Scriptures or something to me before, you know, acting on that idea I might have put to her mind with all the drooling and blank staring. But then nothing happened. I just fell asleep and I dreamed of my kid, and Syria, and shooting Carrie down in the woods last year and the night we kissed, and I dreamed of everything that happened to me, my whole goddamn life, and it was strange and dark, and most of it involved things that I’m not sure about doing or seeing again._  
_Carrie thought I was dead. I thought I’d died as well, for, like, five minutes after waking up the next morning: I hadn’t seen the sun in a long time, and I hadn’t seen her for even longer, and now both were there, and I looked around and I could swear I’d died and went to the wrong place, with Carrie and sunlight instead of, like, Satan having a good laugh over the death fucking march my life had been up to that point. But no. She was there and the world was about to end, and then it didn’t. Nobody ever asked her any questions. The doctor was all giggles and pats on the shoulder for about two weeks following that morning of me being more or less aware of Carrie, and my own brain, and legs and arms, and how much everything hurt like a motherfucker. That was the first time I got to realize where I was. Then I slept for an entire day. And the day after that. Then I woke again and Carrie was still there, and Saul was too, and Dar came in and called me Peter, and I remember a few details of that day really: I think they had to control themselves a lot. I don’t think I said much, that day. The doctors didn’t want them to talk about work, but I wanted to know everything. I still believed the attack in Berlin had gone through. They told me everything that happened, and then I got to know about Carrie’s recent tour of the Middle East and how she and Saul and Dar kind of averted another world fucking war. It’s taken me multiple recounts to memorize the events, and who did what, and I’m writing this down so I can go back to it whenever I want to remember. I’m writing this down to heal myself._  
_I can’t keep much info in for the long run these days. I can’t remember events and words very well, but I can remember feelings, and people’s expressions: I do well with those. I forget about having eaten lunch and I’m not sure I get the names of trees and colors right every time they ask me. I’m just not sure I will function properly ever again, and this scares me out of my mind, although it may be the pressure and expectation, as everybody in the Unit thinks I’m the big shot these days. I don’t know, though. Maybe my brain is hosed. Maybe I just want to go home and practice fucking tree names on my own and be the beacon steering Carrie clear of the rocks, as I promised I would when I left for Syria instead of marrying her and raise her kid in a beach house with a white fence. Haven’t forgotten that, and I’m a man of honor._  
_So lately she’s been here a lot. No pointless chitchat between us, and I love that since I’m not much of a talker. Never been. Which drives the psych team nuts since they can’t tell whether I’m just private or neurologically screwed. I might be both, who knows. Most of the time I’m just not in the mood to talk about how I felt when I almost died. I don’t think there’s much to say: all my life, I never asked for much. I just don’t want to die anytime soon and I’m grateful that I didn’t last year. No idea what else they think they can get out of me, but I’m never telling them about how scared I was, and that some days I wake and I think I’m still in Syria, or in the van with those fuckers from Berlin. That’s my own goddamn business._  
_We’re flying home to the US tomorrow after midnight, so nobody can see me getting out of here and, like, obsess over me and invoke Jesus or whatever. I’m done with deities, honestly. I wake up almost every night with the Quran in my ears as those people used to recite every morning. I could hear them from wherever they were keeping me that day. Carrie seems to be in church a lot, which I think is helping her cope with this new version of me, although it makes me a bit nervous. I don’t know how she was planning to kill me and still go to heaven. But I’d take her in anyway if I was, like, Saint Peter or whoever runs the place. She’s a good person. She’s also the fucking devil, but in a good way, and I love her. I’ve no idea what she’s planning on doing once we get back home, though. Some days, it seems like she’s never setting foot at Langley again. Others, she’s all into the reports Saul still files in from the EU Affairs Office. She reads them to me, but I can’t remember most of the details. Some days, she’ll ask me what day of the week it is multiple times during a conversation, or month numbers, or the fucking ABC’s. Out of nowhere. She’s a nightmare, like, won’t miss one good Q &A for anything in this world. She’s also the one pulling me out of bed almost every day. I hate the wheelchair. I so fucking hate it, it makes me feel like a dumbass and I don’t like people staring. They all know who I am here at the Unit, and what happened to me and whatnot, so we try to sneak out without too much hassle, but there’s always someone and most of the time I just smile politely and off we roll. I’m not sure how Langley’s handling my story, but I doubt they’re managing to contain the news that I’m still around after all. That’s why all I wanna do is fucking disappear once we get back home, though I don’t see that happening so easily._  
_But that’s what I get these days: Carrie and I sitting in the park without even talking, and then we get back in and most of the time I’m too tired to even sit in bed. We’ve never been so close, maybe just in Islamabad but she was different then: she was broken and now I think she’s healed. In her own way, I mean, I can see how she struggles to stay whole, and I think she’s doing that for me, so I don’t feel like I’ve got no one to lean on. But she’s found herself somehow; maybe it’s what happens when you save the world.  
_ _It’s still hard for me though. It’d have been easier to just let go. Sometimes I just can’t push the demons away at night. There’s days when I can’t even remember my own name or understand where I am. I still relive the gas chamber and the metallic taste in my mouth, and falling to the ground, the pain everywhere. And then it ends, and she’s there and we don’t even have to explain ourselves. I love her and I want her to be happy and free. If that involves me, then I’ll just stay alive. That’s what I’ll fucking do._

* * *

_They flew in a week ago. We drove to the base to get them, me and Bill, and the girls. It was unexpected how they just let us in with no one from the press even remotely close to the premises; no one knew they were coming back and I think they were both pretty grateful for that. Carrie just spotted me as soon as she stepped foot on the runway and the way she looked at me, there was no need for words. Peter Quinn is in pretty bad shape; they transferred him to NICOE over at Walter Reed straight off the plane. He looked nothing like he did that day at our house, except for the way he kept looking up at Carrie from the gurney: that was exactly how I remembered, and it made me a bit sad to see him like that now. I wonder how long it’ll take for him to recover, if he ever does. They held hands as the medical team carried him to the ambulance, and everybody seemed quite happy and proud to have him in their care. The State Secretary shook hands with both of them, but I didn’t catch what she said. I bet she blabbered a few formalities, but in truth I don’t think there would be anything the White House could say to these two without sounding lame: if they’re home, that’s most certainly not thanks to them. Carrie knows that, I saw it in the way she kept her composure: she did great though, and I must confess my pride in seeing my sister receiving such display of gratitude from people who really have no clue what a terrorist’s face looks like, or how it is to say goodbye to your family, to be sworn to secrecy, without even knowing if and when you’ll be back. Most of the interest was for Peter Quinn, though. He seemed uncomfortable with the protocol: I saw Carrie squeeze his shoulder as he replied to something the Secretary said. He had some trouble speaking clearly and he seemed very weak, so they just cut it short; everyone clapped their hands and neither of them seemed to know what to do with themselves as the presidential team paid this strange, low-profile homage to them. Carrie kissed his cheek as they lifted the gurney and then they just drove off while she was taken to Langley. She was gone for the entire day. I haven’t seen him ever since._  
_Carrie is home with us now. Franny is slowly getting used to her mom’s presence. She’s such a happy child, I wonder how that’s even possible given the life she’s had up to now, but it’s evident that we all love her so much, and she feels that: she’s always with Carrie, and they both seem to admire each other, even though it may sound crazy that a three year-old can admire anyone, or a grown woman a child. Carrie is amazed at everything Fran says or does and the little one gives every ounce of that love back. It’s crazy to think now about how little I envisioned my sister being a parent: she’s a parent her own way, but it seems to work for now.  
_ _Saul was here a couple times and they talked a lot. I’m not sure what they said to each other, but there seemed to be no tension between them. I think he really does know Carrie’s worth, always has. Besides, I have no clue what she’s gonna do. I just wish she could find the strength to leave the Agency, but I’m not sure whether I want that for our family and myself, or for her. And quite frankly, I don’t think she’ll ever leave. She might work around a few details of her workday for the time being, and I don’t think she’ll be in for another tour in the short term, but that’s who she is. She needs the thrill. She’ll stay for a couple years, I guess, to spend some quality time with Franny, and follow Peter Quinn’s recovery. But she’ll have another run at it, sooner or later. It’s weird how people change, but do not really change. I like the person Carrie is now, she’s done a great job on her wellbeing and I’m proud of her, but I know she’s still the same person who needs the life she’s chosen for herself._

* * *

_I’m home. We both are._  
_I see him every day, even though it pains me to witness his struggle. He needs me and I owe him that. He saved my life. And I need him too. I’m scared about that, though. I’m scared about needing people, my daughter, my sister, Saul… I’m scared about needing Quinn. I just don’t think I can move on without knowing they’re safe and happy, and it’s strange because I was alone all my life, and now I’m not. It all started with Brody, this thing of me caring about others, even though some of them have been with me long before that. I can’t make it go away. I fucking dread more days like the one I lost him. Or when I thought I’d never see my daughter again. Or when I was sure I’d lose Quinn too. I’m becoming more and more dependent on this shit. But I don’t know, it’s also… comforting, I guess. To have that. To have them. I’ve no idea where I’ll be two or three years from now, and I just need to pause this part of my life where I wander off to the battlefield without looking back. But it’ll come get me again. I feel that. I feel like I need this love as fuel for the days where I’ll be alone again. Because I will be, and it scares me now._  
_I pray a lot these days. I pray that I understand what I’m doing, and where everything is going. I pray that my child will grow up not resenting me for my way of life, and that some of our happiest times will stick with her. I pray that I can see a direction for myself that is not right into the gates of hell. I pray that Quinn can live through his nightmares, that he can always wake up to another day waiting to be lived. I pray that he can find himself amongst all the rubble._  
_He’s doing his best: in his strange, unpleasant fucking way. But he’s trying. He’s never, ever doing anything without protesting vividly. When he won’t say anything, it means he’s in pain and I can’t see him like that. But I manage. I help him sit up. I help him eat dinner. I read the newspapers and reports from work to him. I check in every day, and we just sit and I never force him to talk to me if he’s not up to. Some days, he just won’t say a word. Other days, he’s all too sarcastic and we can’t go through one single conversation about work, without him expressing his own view on international affairs. I don’t feel like I shouldn’t talk to him about those things. He seems to enjoy our conversations, as if work was unrelated to how badly injured he is physically, or how horrific his PTSD is. The doctors warned me to avoid the topic, but he keeps asking and I don’t think I should keep it from him, if he wants to be a part of it. He needs to feel like himself. He needs that kind of respect when he can’t have his independency._  
_He’s having physical therapy every day, and it hurts so bad I see him holding back the tears when the therapist extends his legs and arms. He will never admit to being in pain. The shit he’s going through, it’s crazy. He’s not walking, and that worries all of us. They’re saying he’s still too weak to stand up unaided, and his motor control is so bad he needs help with everything. He’s speaking better though, more clearly and for longer periods. He makes an effort to remember everything, but he’s still a bit confused sometimes. I just wish he wasn’t always so exhausted.  
_ _I think he misses being his old self just to a certain extent, though. He misses it physically, and I can understand how he’d like his strength and speech and wit to be back full-force. But I can’t see the shadows in him anymore. Even in the worst days, he looks like a cleaner, purer version of himself. And maybe I am too._

* * *

**December 22 nd, 2016  
** **Washington, DC**

“What do you think?” Carrie asked as she opened the door for him.

“I’m cold.”

“Apart from that.” She replied, amused. “It’s December in DC, Quinn.”

Quinn did not comment. He smiled, more to himself that to her, as he looked on. It was their first night together in Carrie’s apartment, his first home from the hospital; one long, long year had passed since the day he thought he had met his fate in the outskirts of Berlin. And now here he was, with Carrie expecting something from him, anything that could give some meaning to her day as easily as seeing him smile, as she stood amidst that quiet space. The room was cozy, and smelled like her perfume, which made him dizzy in a good way. White and gray minimalist furniture, clean linen bedding and the warmth of a dimmed floor lamp: Quinn breathed in the atmosphere of his first night back into reality. After an entire year fighting for his life, this was the night of the cease-fire. There was no dreading the future, or regretting the past. There was just this sheer, plain situation where they were together, so unexpectedly after all they had gone through, and he was feeling alive and victorious in spite of everything.

“I’m happy that you’re here.” Carrie whispered.

“Yeah. Thank god a motel’s no place for cripples, uh?”

“I wouldn’t stop you, you know.” She replied, as she bent over to embrace him from behind. “If that meant you walking your ass anywhere.”

“I survived ISIS.” He teased. “You’re the only one who’s still disappointed in me. Fucking heartless.”

“Shut up Quinn.” Carrie smiled as she stood back up, squeezing his shoulder. “And please cooperate.” She wrapped his left arm around her waist and helped him up from the wheelchair, sustaining him. “Come on. We’re close.” She held him tight as he leaned on her completely. They took a few steps together. “Okay, we’re going down. One, two…” She slowly lowered him down to the edge of the mattress. “Three.”

“Shit, Carrie.” He exhaled as he fell back onto the pillows. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

Carrie did not reply. She closed the door and pulled the curtains; then she untied her ponytail. She brushed her hair and changed into an oversize cottoned t-shirt leaving one of her shoulders exposed as she poured fresh water on her face from a small stone washbowl. He observed that slow ritual in awe of her body, her wit, her whole person. Then she peeked outside through a tight opening between the gray velvet curtains.

“It’s snowing.” She noted quietly. “Haven’t seen a good old snowfall in a long time.”

“Me neither. I was probably bleeding into my brain last time it happened.”

She turned to him quickly, her fingers still holding the edge of the curtain, ready for a snarky comeback. But then all words evaporated into thin air as she saw his smile, the way he was looking at her from where he lay, so sweet and full of love, as if no physical ailment could ever stop him from fending off any kind of evil in the world that may threaten her with danger. Reciprocating his glance, she walked over to the bed and lied down supine beside him. They lay in silence for a few minutes, one savoring the presence of the other, lost in thought processes that they could not fully trace, as snow shrouded Washington, their doubts and fears.

“We do belong together, don’t you think?” Quinn pointed vaguely at his wheelchair parked in a corner of the room, and Carrie’s medication bottles sitting on top of the bedside table. He sounded amused, but she could perceive the depths of the most intimate feelings in his stare fixed ahead. “We’re fucking made for each other, Carrie.”

“Quinn.”

“What.”

“Do you think it’d be okay?” She turned to him, sustaining her chin with her palm, her free arm extended to touch his shoulder.

“No shit. We’re already in bed together.” He joked. “If my senses are not failing me.”

“No, I mean…” She paused, caressing his cheek as he turned slightly to face her. “I know we are. I just… don’t want to spoil this.” She looked away.

“Carrie,” He pierced her right through with his crystalline stare, his tone graver now, and his palm cupping her cheek so she could look at him. “It still feels right to me.”

She snuggled up closer and nestled herself into his embrace.

“I know it does.” She whispered. “But you know who we are, both of us.”

“We’ve already had this conversation.” He noted.

“It seems like ages ago.” said Carrie.

“It was.”

“What you wrote to me… _afterwards_ ,” Carrie looked up at him. It was time to bring it up, or it would always linger between them. “What you wrote in that letter.”

“…”

“I don’t…” Her voice broke. “I don’t want you to… _owe_ me anything. It wouldn’t be fair, Quinn.”

“Shut up Carrie.”

“No.” She sat up. “I can’t be your reason to live. You need to live for yourself.”

“I love you. I fucking do.” He whispered. “That’s enough for me. I’ve never had anything until I had you.”

Carrie could not respond to that. She began to think about people’s reasons for living, and she could tell everybody had one. She could see herself alone and lost before being able to open up and risk something, anything, for the bliss of her daughter’s love, or that of finding Quinn alive in Berlin. Who was she to rule on anyone’s reasons for being, when she herself was knot-tied to the love she felt for others?

“Quinn…” She rubbed his cheek, slowly, a sweet smile curving her lips. “If we try… _this._ There’s no going back.”

“No.” He looked on behind her shoulder. “There’s not. But I’m tired of being hopeless.”

They started slowly. She kissed his neck, while gliding her fingertips across his hairline, and then seamlessly shifted to the back of his ears where his skin was diaphanous and smelled of cologne. Sliding underneath her shirt, he cupped her soft, warm breasts in his palms, and shivers ran down her spine at the surprise of his gentle, firm touch on her. A moment so anticipated, and yet they were adrift into each other’s sensations as she undressed him quietly, pulling down his briefs and kissing his chest downwards, sliding her tongue across the valleys of his hipbones, and the peaks of his ribs as he pressed his burning lips against the base of her neck. One knew by heart every path along the curves of the other’s body, as if they had been imprinted with that memory long before they could know love and yearning, as if their minds had been ready for that kind of aching, almost nostalgic kind of reciprocal hunger since the very first day they had breathed in each other’s air, shared the same sights, dangers, fears and hopes. Carrie channeled Quinn’s open palms along her waist and thighs and removed her own shirt, which fell off her shoulders gracefully while she moved on top. He kissed the dip between her breasts with the delicate touch of his lips parted slightly, breathing hot air onto her skin, his temple resting onto the curved groove of her collarbone as he slowly began to search for her. She slid her fingertips all along his chest, the tips of her hair tickling his neck delightfully as she glided down, lifting his chin with her forehead to peck his closed eyelids whose blue threading she knew so well. They found each other in that moment: he took her as if he had always known her, as if his body had been craving hers since the dawn of time; their rational minds, so alert and trained to perpetual, exhausting wakefulness, faded away into that invincible deluge of desire, flooding their bodies and souls.  
Sunrise found them once again a few hours into their peaceful slumber, showering the room in ethereal whiteness, all sounds and sights outside shrouded by a gentle blanket of snow.


End file.
